


Blood of the Father

by Cynder2013



Series: O+ Mixtape [3]
Category: Bones (TV), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Corpses, Family Bonding, Family Secrets, Forensics, Gen, Multi, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24443020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder2013/pseuds/Cynder2013
Summary: Willow makes a discovery that changes a lot for the Scoobies and the Jeffersonian team.
Relationships: Angel/Buffy Summers, Cordelia Chase/Xander Harris, Daniel "Oz" Osbourne/Willow Rosenberg, Ethan Rayne/Joyce Summers, Jack Hodgins/Angela Montenegro, Jenny Calendar/Rupert Giles, Seeley Booth/Temperance Brennan
Series: O+ Mixtape [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733377
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	1. Blood Will Out

**Author's Note:**

> This story is an AU of an AU. It starts at chapter eight of "Let the Wrong One In" with just one change that snowballs into the rest of the fic. I've tried to write it so that you don't need to read "Let the Wrong One In" to read this story. I'm also going to be using the timeline for _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ (i.e. this starts in 1997) but I have an explanation for why technology is more advance on the _Bones_ side of things, even though both shows are in season two (I don't think this sentence made sense...).  
> Also, chapters are going to get much longer after the first one because I'm going to have to fit entire cases into them.

Xander Harris was dying. He’d gotten pretty good at judging how much blood he could lose before he became useless in a fight and the smoke demon lady with her fangs in his neck had passed that point a long time ago. He wasn’t even able to struggle anymore, just hang limply in her arms while the world went dark. When the demoness dropped him and he hit his head on the floor, he did the logical thing and blacked out.

Waking up in a hospital bed was a surprise, but not an unpleasant one considering that Xander had been certain he was going to die. He opened his eyes slowly to a fairly large room that was empty except for him and a nurse named Isabella, who’d been working at Sunnydale General since he was a kid.

“There you are,” Isabella said. “You’ve got your friends waiting for you, Alexander. How are you feeling?”

“Like I could use a dose of Willow,” Xander said hoarsely. His body felt heavy and numb.

Isabella smiled at him and patted his arm. “Let’s get you into your room so you can see her.”

Xander had been in his room—a private room that Isabelle let him know Giles and Ms. Summers were paying for after he’d had a mini freak out at the expense—for about ten seconds when Willow and Buffy came running in.

“OhmygodXanderweweresoworried!” Willow swooped in for a hug that she prematurely cut-off with a squeak. She stood next to him and wrung her hands. “Does it hurt?”

“Nah, they’ve got me on the good drugs.” Xander grinned. “What happened? Are Buffy’s mom and cousin okay?”

“They’re fine,” Buffy said. “Giles killed the demon faerie lady. He’s borrowed Lucy to do some research or they’d be here too.”

“A research party already?” Xander asked. “Did something else happen?”

Buffy bit her lip. She rubbed the crook of her arm. “When you were in surgery...They ran out of blood. I donated some and now Giles wants to make sure you won’t have any bad side effects.”

Xander frowned. “I’ve got Slayer blood inside me?” That didn’t sound too bad, unless it started attacking him from the inside. But that would definitely never happen. Nope, death by magical blood wasn’t something that would ever happen in Sunnydale.

Xander Harris, king of deluding himself. 

Willow nodded. “Buffy was the only one who could donate because Giles and Lucy and I aren’t O-negative, and we couldn’t get your parents here in time.”

“Darn vampires, stealing blood from the hospital,” Xander said. “When do you think I’ll be out of here?”

* * *

The first sign that something was off was when Xander was struggling to get his locker open with one hand and nearly bent the door in half. He stared at the mangled metal for a second before taking everything out of his locker and pounding the door back into shape so it would close. It probably wouldn’t open again, but that wasn’t his problem.

Willow, Buffy, Giles and Lucy were all in the library when Xander got there. When Buffy saw him she hurried to take the belongings weighing him down.

“Thanks,” Xander said. Trying to carry all the stuff he’d kept in his locker with only one good arm was not easy. By some miracle he’d managed not to put strain on the one hundred stitches in his neck and shoulder.

“What happened?” Buffy asked.

“I broke my locker.” Xander looked in the direction of the piles of books surrounding Giles. “Hey, G-man? Is super strength one of the side effects of Slayer blood transfusion?”

Giles, Lucy and Willow popped their heads out from behind the books (Giles and Lucy) and computer (Willow). “Is what a side effect?” Giles asked.

“Slayer-like strength,” Xander said. “I killed my locker, and I think I might have broken the door a bit leaving the house.” There had been an ominous crash behind him when he’d left for school that morning, but he’d just thought it was his dad getting falling-down drunk again.

Lucy, Buffy’s cousin and Sunnydale resident of going on three weeks, riffled through some of the papers on the table. “Um, Slayer blood has been reported to give vampires extra strength.”

Xander sat down in the free chair between Willow and Lucy. “Not a vampire.”

Giles adjusted his glasses. “There was a Russian Slayer in the nineteen twenties who saved her Watcher’s life with a transfusion of her own blood. I’m reading his journal right now. Only give me a moment. Thank god he wrote in Latin.”

Xander drummed his fingers on the table while he waited for Giles. Super strength wasn’t the worst side effect in the world. He just had to hope it was because of Buffy’s blood and not because he was possessed again.

“Volkov, the Watcher, says he experienced an increase in strength,” Giles said. “He reported it to the Council and...his journal ends there.”

“Fantastic.” Xander looked at Lucy. “Is there anything else vampires experience that I can looked forward to?”

Lucy glared at him over the book she was reading. “Slayer’s blood is a powerful aphrodisiac,” she said flatly before picking up her bag and sweeping out of the library faster than Xander could start to blush. Not that he did blush. He was a hot-blooded American teenage boy; he didn’t blush at the thought of sex.

Giles coughed. “That is generally accepted. Don’t you have class now?”

Xander jumped out of his seat. “Yes, indeed we do. I can leave my stuff here, right G-man?”

“Do stop calling me that,” Giles muttered, but he agreed to let Xander use the library as his locker. 

Xander was in and out of the library all day. During their free period and lunch, Willow was working on something on the computer that involved a lot of muttering and glaring at the screen, so he and Buffy decided that it was safer not to interrupt her. It was only at the end of the day that Willow let out a shout of triumph.

“What’s up, Willow?” Buffy asked.

“You know how I was making a chart of our blood types so we could see who can donate to who if someone needs blood again?” Willow barely waited for Buffy, Giles and Lucy to nod before continuing. “I started looking at our parents too, you know, just in case? And I found out that Mrs. Harris is A-positive and Mr. Harris is AB-positive, and that’s weird because Xander is O-negative so he’d need to get O-type genes from both of his parents and that’s not possible with Mr. Harris because someone whose blood type is AB won’t have an O-type gene.”

Xander had to interrupt her. “Willow, are you saying what it sounds like you’re saying? Because I don’t get all the science stuff but it sounds like you’re saying my dad can’t be my dad.”

Willow nodded frantically. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I, er, found your birth certificate and, well.” She pointed at the computer screen.

Xander read the name written in the space for his dad’s name on the birth certificate he’d never seen before. He’d always thought that his parents had lost it or that his dad had sold it. Now he was pretty sure that his dad had never seen his birth certificate, and he had no idea how his mom had managed to hide it or why she’d even write down what was apparently his real dad’s name.

“Huh,” Xander said.

“And I found him.” Willow opened a different page on the computer. “See? We’ve got his email address and his phone number, and that’s where he works.”

“And I’m sure you got all of this legally,” Giles said in a tone that made it clear he expected the exact opposite.

Willow blushed. “I might have...hacked the FBI. Just a little.”

Xander shook his head. “Willow, you are scary. Brilliant, but scary.”

Willow and Xander looked through all the information she had about Xander’s dad while Giles read books and Buffy and Lucy disappeared to go look for Angel, because something research they’ve been doing since Xander was given Buffy’s blood something needed to ask Angel a question about something. Xander hadn’t really been listening.

“My, er, Tony definitely doesn’t know about this,” Xander said. “He’d have sent me to live with him years ago.”

Willow looked at him with sympathy in her eyes. She knew that Tony wasn’t much of a dad, she just didn’t know exactly how bad he was. Xander had gotten good at hiding the bruises until he hadn’t needed to anymore. Turns out not-his-dad didn’t want to risk hitting someone who’d threatened him with a battle axe. Go figure.

“What do you want to do?” Willow asked.

Xander looked at the photo of his dad grinning at them from the computer screen. “I...don’t know.” This was his dad. He looked like he was a good person, but Xander knew looks could be deceiving. And even if he did turn out to be practically perfect in every way, what right did Xander have to show up in his life saying “Hey, I’m your sixteen-year-old son you never knew you had”? His dad had a life outside of Sunnydale. He didn’t deserve to have to deal with the demonic and other baggage Xander carried with him.

Willow nodded. “How about we set up an email account for you? Then if you decide you want to contact him it’ll be easy.”

That sounded like a good idea to Xander. Low commitment but still doing something.

“Okay,” Xander said. “Teach me your ways, queen of the Internet.”

Willow grinned.

* * *

Buffy had a vampire living in her basement.

That’s what she said. “I have a vampire living in my basement.” No preamble, no explanation, just “I have a vampire living in my basement.”

Xander blinked. “Huh what?”

“I agree with Xander,” Willow said. “What?”

Buffy drummed her fingers on a small patch of the table that wasn’t covered in books from some sort of research that Xander didn’t recall. It might have been something to do with Halloween. She looked at Xander. “Now might be a good time for that sparing practice we were talking about.”

With Xander’s brand new super strength, he and Buffy had been planning to start training together as soon as his stitches were out. They’d done some tests and he wasn’t as strong as her and Angel but he was a lot stronger than Giles, Willow and Lucy. Willow thought that he was at about eighty percent Slayer strength. Xander was excited to start training, but vampire living in Buffy’s basement seemed a lot more important at the moment.

“Explain first,” Xander said.

Buffy explained. Giles took off his glasses and began polishing them after she got two sentences in. If Xander had glasses to polish, he probably would have broken them. Buffy didn’t say it, but in some way the vampire in her basement was his fault. The research Lucy had been doing into the effects of Slayer blood on the body had spiralled into something else entirely. She’d found information saying that a vampire’s blood could heal their vampire children, one thing lead to another, and she, Buffy and Angel somehow though it would be a good idea for Angel to heal a vampire called Drusilla in exchange for Spike and Drusilla leaving town. Xander didn’t know if the rest of them would ever have known about it if Drusilla hadn’t started growing a soul, dumped Spike and moved in with the Summers family because living with Angel was “too traumatizing”.

Also, Buffy’s mom knew that she was the Slayer now, because it would be kind of hard to hide a vampire in their basement if she didn’t. Apparently Drusilla liked her.

“Nope,” Xander said. “Nope, I am not going to deal with this right now.” He stood and moved over to the computer.

“You’re using the computer? What are you doing?” Willow asked.

Xander logged on to his Hotmail account. “Writing to my dad.” Because getting in contact with the father he had only just learned about and had never met before would be the most logical decision any of them had made all week.


	2. The Son in Sunnydale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There should be two line breaks to signal POV changes.  
> I've used American spelling in the emails because the people writing them are American.

Dust fell off of the blinds as FBI agent Seeley Booth tried to let a little light into his office. He sighed and gave up when they got stuck half open. Las Vegas had been...complicated. He didn’t have the energy to fight with the window coverings.

His computer booted up quickly (Sully was right when he said the FBI got all the best toys, though the Jeffersonian came a close second) and he started sorting through the emails that had piled up while he was in the field. Mostly memos, a reminder that his firearms certification needed updating and a message with the subject line “Jessica Lavelle (Harris)” from someone called xander_axman using a Hotmail address.

Jessica Lavelle. Booth knew that name. It belonged to a curvy redhead he’d met in a bar in Dallas after high school graduation but before he’d enlisted. He and Jess had both been with a group of friends, both been travelling across the country on a post-graduation road trip and both never expected to see each other again after they left Texas. They’d had a whirlwind week together and that was that. So why was someone emailing him about her sixteen years later?

He opened the email, read the first line and proceeded to stare at it for a solid minute before he continued reading.

 _Dear Mr. Booth,_ (the email read)

_My mom is Jessica Lavelle Harris and she put your name on my birth certificate. I didn’t know about that until a few weeks ago, and I’m betting you didn’t know either. Congratulations, it’s a boy!_

_My name is Alexander Lavelle Harris, but everyone calls me Xander. I’m sixteen years old and I’ve spent my whole life in Sunnydale, California. I’m reaching out to you because you’re my dad and it would be nice to have a dad to talk to. Look, I’m not good with words. It’s something our librarian complains about all the time. I guess I should tell you a bit about me and you can decide if you can stand to be associated with me. I’m a junior in high school. My grades are okay. My best friends are two girls and our school librarian. We spend a lot of time in the library and I guess I kind of like reading sometimes, but I’d rather read a comic than a textbook. I don’t play any sports but I’ve been learning some martial arts. My favorite color is blue. That’s kind of it. I hope you’ll write back, but I understand if you don’t._

_From,_

_Xander Harris_

Booth printed out two copies of the email. He needed some help with this one.

* * *

“The kid is who he says he is, Booth,” Pete said as soon as Booth answered his phone. “Alexander Lavelle Harris son of Jessica Lavelle Harris, turns seventeen on February first nineteen ninety-eight, junior at Sunnydale High School in beautiful Sunnydale, California. Only thing he was wrong about is that he’s getting average grades in gifted-level science classes. That sounds a bit more than ‘okay’ to me.”

Booth waited for a second in case Pete had more to say before he asked, “So, everything checks out?”

“Well...You had Kowalski down in cyber looking at something too, didn’t you?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Booth dodged a group of museum goers who weren’t paying attention to their surroundings. The Jeffersonian wasn’t usually this crowded when they wrapped up a case, but there had been a big “be home before dark” vibe with this one what with the witch story and the videos. Booth chose to blame his subconscious.

“He’s been trying to plug holes in security since you asked me to run the check for you. Based on the muttering he was doing when I tried to get him to break for lunch, he can’t figure out how the kid got your email.” Booth could practically hear Pete smirking. “You’d better call him or he won’t get back to you until next year.”

“I will.” Booth made it outside and unlocked his car. When he was seated he asked, “So what doesn’t check out?”

Pete sighed. “Little things, like the librarian he mentioned. Dr. Rupert Giles, quit his job as a curator at the British Museum to be a high school librarian on a Green Card. I can’t get anything else on him without going to the British, and I’m guessing you don’t want that?”

Booth grimaced. “Not yet.” He didn’t want to totally take the option off the table.

Pete scoffed. “Sure, Booth. And Sunnydale. Sunnydale is weird, man. I’ll send you the stats with everything else I found, but for a start, they have twelve active cemeteries for a population of a little over thirty-eight thousand, plus another twenty that aren’t used anymore because they’re full. That ain’t normal.”

Thirty-two cemeteries did seem a little excessive for a town that wasn’t all that large.

“Thanks, Pete,” Booth said. “I owe you one.”

“I take payment in Swiss chocolate and good whiskey,” Pete said.

Booth called Kowalski after Pete had hung up. After he’d gotten Kowalski to actually pay attention to him, he was treated to a rant about how a sixteen-year-old had somehow ghosted through all their security and he couldn’t figure out how it had happened and if a kid could do it how much danger were they in and I blame you for this Agent Booth. It took a while for Kowalski to get it all out of his system. Once he did, he confirmed that he had no idea how Xander had gotten Booth’s FBI email address. Then he hung up without saying goodbye. Booth made a mental note to buy him a bottle of wine and some scented candles or something. Kowalski was going to give himself an ulcer.

Booth thought about what he was going to do about the boy who was possibly his son for the rest of the day. By the time he got home he had come to a decision. Xander was in Sunnydale, so Booth would go to Sunnydale to meet him.

* * *

* * *

Xander went flying across the library and crashed into the book cage. He lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling and trying to breath.

“Are you okay, Xander?” Buffy called from where her foot had met Xander’s chest and made him make with the flying.

“Peachy,” Xander choked out. “I think we can cross Slayer recovery time off the list of powers I have.”

Buffy came over and helped Xander to his feet. “So, you’ll be at the family dinner tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Those had been the terms of their duel. He lost, so he had to sit through a meal at the Summers’ house with two vampires. “For the record, I’m not happy about it.”

Buffy smirked. “You’ll change your mind the second Drusilla calls me ‘Mummy’.”

He highly doubted that.

“Is it safe to come out now?” Willow asked from behind a bookshelf.

“All clear, Wills,” Buffy said.

Willow came out of the stacks and headed straight for the computer. “Where’s that coroner’s report? Oh, Xander, you’ve got an email.”

He did?

“You really shouldn’t leave your account logged in like this,” Willow said. She clicked a few things and ceded her seat to Xander as the printer started whirring away.

The email was from Seeley Booth. It had been almost two weeks since Xander wrote to him, but with the sudden rash of murders that looked a whole lot like Ampata the mummy girl was back in town (she wasn’t, Giles had checked and confirmed she was somewhere in Sweden) and Buffy’s so-called friend trying to sell her out to Spike in exchange for being turned (according to Lucy’s totally not secret spy report that was a thing they’d all okayed at some point because it was better than having Spike running around unattended, Spike had laughed in his face and then broken his neck) there hadn’t been much time for Xander to stress out about it.

He was stressing out now.

Xander took a deep breath in and breathed out slowly. He opened the email.

 _Dear Xander,_ the email began.

That was good, right? No full name, no Mr. Harris, just Xander. He kept reading.

_Dear Xander,_

_Your mom and I met near the end of June 1981 in Dallas, Texas. We were both on cross-country road trips with our friends. I joined the army a few months after that trip was over._

_My best friends are forensic scientists. I play a lot of sports. My favorite color is red._

_From,_

_Booth_

“Huh,” Xander said.

Willow and Buffy looked up from the printouts. “Is that a good huh or a bad huh?” Willow asked.

“I don’t know.” Xander read the email again. Good: His dad remembered his mom, his dad was telling him about himself and his dad had emailed back. Bad: His dad didn’t say anything about possibly being his dad, his dad didn’t seem to want any proof that he was his dad and the email was really short. “He says his best friends are forensic scientists.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Willow said. “We could use some forensic scientists.”

Buffy elbowed her. “We’re secret identity people, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but we’re getting nowhere.” Willow gestured at the papers scattered in front of them. “It’s like they all dropped dead for no good reason and turned into prunes!”

Xander sighed and logged out of his email. “Let me have a look. When did Giles say he’d be back?”

Buffy shrugged. “I think he’s trying to get the photocopier to work. It might be a while.”

* * *

The “family” dinner turned out to not be so bad, in Xander’s opinion. He wasn’t sitting near Angel or Drusilla, both of the vampires were at the other end of the table and mostly ignored him, but he could see the look on Angel’s face whenever Drusilla called Buffy “Mummy” or Ms. Summers “Grandmummy”. It was priceless.

Giles was in the middle of a lecture/rant about something called a lectoblix that he’d started because Ms. Summers had asked how their research on the freshly withered corpses was going (answer: badly) when there was a pounding on the back door. He broke off in the middle of a word. “What could that be?”

“Probably a demon,” Xander said.

Willow sighed. “Pessimistic, but probably true.”

Probably a demon frantically pounded on the door again. Buffy grabbed a sword and went to go answer it.

“Shh, he’s sleeping,” Drusilla said. “Don’t touch the sleepwalker.”

“Don’t open that door!” Giles jumped to his feet, nearly knocking over his chair in the process.

“Geeze, Giles, I’m the Slayer, remember?” Buffy said, but she stepped back from the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Would you let us in already?” a man with a British accent yelled from outside. “Thomas and Deidre are dead, Ripper! He’s coming after us!”

“Buffy, cover me,” Giles said. Buffy nodded.

Giles opened the door and two men came stumbling in. “Close it! Close it!” one of them, not the one who’d spoken when they’d been outside, shouted. Giles already had the door shut and locked.

“Bloody hell,” the first man breathed. “Cutting it close, Ripper?” He stood up straight and Xander saw that he possessed a very familiar face.

“Ethan,” Giles said stiffly. His voice softened when he addressed the man who hadn’t turned half of Sunnydale into their Halloween costumes. “Philip. It’s Eyghon, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. Who else could it be?” Ethan snapped. “He’s possessed Deidre’s body and has been chasing us all over this bloody town. Do you know how hard it is to hide two people from a demon they’ve specifically invited to track them down?”

“Harder than it is to hide one person, I imagine,” Giles said.

“Well, I...” Ethan made a face. Philip looked back and forth between him and Giles.

Drusilla stood and walked into the kitchen. The three men froze as she laid her hand on Ethan’s cheek. “You’re sparkling. Don’t worry, Mummy and Daddy will help you.”

Ethan looked about as reassured as Xander had felt when Drusilla called him White Knight and said she was sorry for trying to kill him.

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Giles? Make with the splainy.”

Giles sighed. “Joyce, would you mind terribly if Ethan and I put up some wards first?” He glared at Ethan, who snapped his mouth shut before he could say whatever he’d been going to say.

“Wards are like magic shields, right?” Ms. Summers asked. Giles nodded. “Go ahead, just be careful.”

Giles cut Ethan off with a glare again. “Are you going to cause problems?”

Ethan held up his hands. “I’ll help properly. I want to live.”

Ms. Summers invited Philip to eat dinner while Giles and Ethan ransacked the kitchen for spell ingredients. Underneath all the commotion, Xander saw Buffy and Lucy speak quietly to Drusilla before they all went back to their seats.

Giles and Ethan came back inside after a few minutes. “That’ll have bought us about an hour,” Giles said.

“Explain,” Buffy ordered.

Giles explained and so did Ethan, with Philip speaking up every time he thought they’d forgotten something. The short version was that they’d summoned a demon with three people who were dead now and the demon was out to get them. The long version included Giles and Ethan arguing a lot about why they’d summoned the demon and why it hadn’t tried to kill them before now.

“So don’t die and don’t get knocked unconscious,” Buffy said. “Giles, you’re sitting this one out.”

Xander, Willow, Lucy and even Angel chuckled. Ms. Summers looked confused. Drusilla was laughing too, but the odds that she was amused at the reference to Giles’s most likely to get concussed award were slim.

“Very funny,” Giles said flatly. “Shall we attempt to make a plan?”

The plan was, as Ethan put it, terribly simple. He, Giles and Philip would play bait and then destroy the tattoos linking them to the demon while Buffy and Angel killed it. The rest of them would stay at Buffy’s house and hope really hard that nothing they couldn’t handle came after them.

“But how do we kill Egghead?” Buffy asked. “Isn’t he all not physical?”

“Beheading Eyghon’s vessel should do the trick,” Giles said.

Buffy nodded. “Angel, do you want a sword or an axe?”

* * *

Giles and Ethan were arguing over the monster of the week again. Why was Ethan even still in Sunnydale? Philip had gone straight back to merry old England as soon as the body Eyghon had been using was classified demon-free. Ethan was hanging around the Sunnydale High library all day or at least during lunch and after school.

Lucy slammed the book she was reading shut, drawing everyone’s attention. Giles made a sound that made it clear that he did not approve of a book being treated that way.

“Should we be checking if someone transplanted teenage personalities into all the adults in town or is it only you two we should be worried about?” Lucy asked.

Giles and Ethan looked at each other. Giles cleared his throat. “Ah, well...”

“Giles, could this be it?” Willow read from the book she had open in front of her. “It’s a leannán sídhe, aka faerie muse. ‘The faerie feeds on their life and they waste away.’ That sounds like what’s happening.”

“That it does,” Ethan said. “But I’d heard you’d killed one of those already.”

Giles narrowed his eyes at Ethan. “That particular leannán sídhe had been specifically imprisoned and didn’t match several of the common markers.” He put his glasses back on. “I believe Willow is on the right track. Several of the fair folk feed on human energy. The leannán sídhe, the gancanagh...” He headed into the stacks and emerged with several more books. “These ought to be useful.”

“Joy,” Xander said. “Are any of those in English?” He was getting tired of puzzling through Demotic, Etruscan and whatever that book with the tentacle-faced demon had been written in. At least Latin wasn’t so bad anymore and he was getting pretty good with Akkadian.

Before Giles could answer, the bell rang. Xander swept the homework that was due next period into his bag. He’d almost gotten it done. He’d be able to finish it before class started. 

Willow, Buffy and Lucy also packed up their things. “See you later, Giles,” Buffy said.

“Yes, see you later,” Giles said without looking up from his book.

“Have fun learning, kids,” Ethan said.

Yeah, right.

Xander regrouped with the rest of the gang in the library after classes were finally over. Buffy was grumbling about French class and how was she supposed to know that the French she knew thanks to Halloween was a century out of date, it was still French wasn’t it? Willow was doing research and Lucy appeared to have fallen asleep with her head on the table. Xander was thinking that a nap sounded like a good idea when Ethan came striding into the library right on time.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Xander asked.

Ethan grinned. “I found something of yours, Harris. You ought to thank me.”

Giles sighed. “Would it kill you not to be confrontational, Ethan?”

Xander missed Ethan’s undoubtedly pithy response. He was too busy gawking at the man and woman who’d entered the library after him.

* * *

* * *

Arranging to go to Sunnydale was as simple as filling out the forms for personal leave, getting caught by Cam filling out the forms for personal leave, explaining to Cam why he was applying for personal leave, and having Cam bully him into letting her join him when she saw the stats Pete had sent him on Sunnydale. Simple.

Booth looked out the window as the plane landed. Cam had insisted on booking their flights and whether because it was cheaper or because it was convenient they’d ended up on a red-eye that arrived in Sunnydale a little after sunrise. Cam was seated next to him. The rest of the plane was nearly empty. From the conversations he’d overheard in the close quarters, it seemed like the few other people on the plane were in Sunnydale on business or visiting family members who lived there.

Cam took their bags out of the overhead compartment. She passed Booth his duffel and shouldered her backpack. They’d both fit all the belongings they needed into their carry-ons since they were only planning to stay until Sunday morning.

“We should go find a hotel first,” Booth said as they got off of the plane.

“No need. I’ve got a colleague who’s putting us up for the weekend.” Cam smiled at the surprise that must have been showing on his face. “One of us had to think ahead.”

Cam’s colleague was a grey-haired woman named Madeline who worked as one of Sunnydale’s ten coroners. As she drove from the airport to her house, she and Cam exchanged small talk while Booth tried not to elbow himself in the kidneys sitting in the back seat of her tiny car. They passed what seemed like miles of graveyards before entering what looked like a middle-class suburb. Madeline pulled into the garage of her house before shutting off the car.

“Breakfast first,” Madeline said lightly. “Then I’ll let the two of you get on with whatever you came here to do while I deal with the latest batch of corpses.”

“Uh, thanks,” Booth said. Nonchalance about corpses was something that happened in their lines of work, right?

“So, what’s the plan?” Cam asked when Booth came back downstairs after a quick shower to scrub off the lingering feel of the airplane. “Do you have somewhere you and Xander arranged to meet?”

Booth rubbed the back of his neck and gave a small, awkward smile. “Well...”

Cam pursed her lips. “You didn’t tell him you were coming.”

Booth nodded. If Xander was lying he wanted to catch him off guard. If he wasn’t lying then Booth could call it a surprise.

Cam sighed. “Okay then. Where are we starting?”

“Recon,” Booth said. He had planned on going straight to Sunnydale High School, but it was too early in the day for that.

Recon consisted of wandering around town and stopping for lunch at a small Indian restaurant that seemed to be popular with high school kids. Booth and Cam were both dressed casually, so they didn’t draw too much attention from the students or anyone else in the restaurant. One girl stared wide-eyed at Booth for a few seconds before her friends drew her attention away, but that was it. Booth was getting small town weirdness vibes from Sunnydale. The people they talked to were friendly but not open. Whenever he mentioned something about the ridiculous number of cemeteries or the abnormally low property values he was met with a shrug and a response along the lines of “that’s how it is” before the person suddenly had somewhere else to be. It was setting off little sirens in his head that told him something wasn’t right here.

Then he met Principal Snyder.

The short, balding man looked disturbingly happy when, after Booth had gotten his attention by saying that he was FBI, Booth asked where he could find Xander Harris. “What’s he done? No, I don’t care as long as you arrest him. He must have done something. I could expel him for you. What about the Summers girl? If Harris is involved she definitely is. Say the word and I’ll expel both of them!”

“I’m not here to arrest anyone,” Booth said.

Snyder frowned. He seemed like he was about to argue when he caught sight of something over Cam’s shoulder. “Hey, you! What is that, a Pez dispenser? No students selling food items on school grounds!”

Booth and Cam exchanged a look as the principal marched away.

“Nice guy,” Cam said.

“Excuse me.” Booth turned towards the man with a British accent who he was sure was speaking to them. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Alexander should be in the library. I could show you the way, if you’d like.”

The man wasn’t Dr. Rupert Giles, Pete had sent Booth pictures and this man had darker eyes and sharper features than Dr. Giles, but considering that he seemed to know that Xander spent a lot of time in the library Booth thought it was probably accurate to assume that he knew Dr. Giles.

“That’d be great,” Booth said.

“If it’s no trouble,” Cam added.

The man grinned. “No trouble at all to help out a pair as lovely as you.”

* * *

The first words said after Booth and Cam entered the library were from the blonde girl leaning against the chain-link door of the cage on one side of the room. She looked at Booth, blinked once and asked, “I guess you’re the guy Lucy was talking about?”

That question was quickly followed by the dark-haired boy who Booth knew had to be Xander saying, “I thought you only looked like Angel in pictures.”

There were two other teens in the library aside from Xander and the blonde, a redheaded girl who appeared to be trying to hide behind a stack of books on the table and someone else with curly brown hair who was asleep with their head on the table. Dr. Giles was standing on one of the sets of stairs leading up to the bookshelves at the back of the room, carrying his own small stack of books.

“Hi,” Booth said.

Xander opened and closed his mouth several times. He made a squeaking sound.

“Who are you?” the blonde asked.

“I’m FBI agent Seeley Booth, this is Dr. Camille Saroyan.” Booth gestured towards Cam, who gave a little wave.

The blonde raised an eyebrow. “You’re Xander’s dad?”

“That’s really weird,” the redhead said. “Not that you’re Xander’s dad, because we already knew that, but that you look exactly like Angel if he was older and had a tan, which is really weird because that would never happen.” The girl blushed and ducked back behind her stack of books. Booth was pretty sure that she hadn’t breathed once while saying all of that.

“Let’s try not to scare him away, Wils.” The blonde smiled. “I’m Buffy, that was Willow, Lucy’s the one who’s asleep—”

Lucy muttered something that sounded like “Was asleep.” When she lifted her head from the table Booth saw that she was the girl who’d been staring at him in the restaurant.

“—Giles is the one with the glasses and Ethan is the one who won’t go away,” Buffy finished.

Booth had figured out that last bit. Ethan acted like he was welcome, but everyone else in the room made it clear that they’d rather he wasn’t there. Booth wondered why they put up with him.

“Nice to meet all of you,” Cam said.

The room was silent for a few moments. Then Dr. Giles placed his books on the table and asked if they’d like tea.

“I could use a cuppa,” Ethan said.

“I wasn’t offering you,” Dr. Giles said. He brought a cup for Ethan anyway.

By that time, Willow, Buffy and Lucy had cleared all of the books off the table. “We’ll take the homework into the stacks,” Willow said. “You guys can have the table.”

“You’re welcome to work in my office,” Dr. Giles said.

Buffy hefted the pile of books she was carrying. “This won’t all fit in your office, but thanks.”

The girls disappeared among the bookcases while Dr. Giles poured tea and Xander shifted nervously in his seat, which was to be expected from a kid who’d apparently hacked the FBI. Booth studied Xander. He couldn’t see his mother in him, it had been a long time since he’d last interacted with Jessica Lavelle, but if he looked he could see a little bit of himself. There was something in Xander’s eyes that matched what Booth saw when he looked in the mirror, not just the colour but also something...Booth-like. Bones could probably tell if they were related or not by comparing their cheekbones, but all Booth had to go on at that moment were his feelings. His gut was telling him that he and Xander were connected.

“Should we be talking?” Xander asked.

Booth smiled. “We probably should.”

* * *

Before they left Sunnydale, Cam got Xander to give her a cheek swab that she was going to compare to Booth’s DNA as soon as they got home. Booth was almost surprised at how hard he was hoping that the results would confirm that Xander was his son. He liked the kid.

Xander had a school project that he had to work on for most of the weekend, but he and Booth had met up for lunch on Saturday. He liked movies as much as Parker did and was super excited about having a little brother (once he got over his shock). Booth had listened to him babble for at least five minutes about how Willow was going to be so jealous and did Booth have any pictures and ohmygod he’s so cute but please don’t tell the girls I squealed like that, they’ll never let me live it down.

Cam noticed Booth grinning broadly and elbowed him. “You’re going to start freaking people out.”

Booth scoffed. “Like anyone here is paying attention to me.” The plane leaving Sunnydale had a lot more people on it than the one they’d taken to get there, but almost all of them were asleep.

“True.” Cam smiled. “How are you feeling?” 

“Good,” Booth said. “Kind of nervous. How long is the DNA test going to take?”

“No more than a day.” When Booth looked at her with raised eyebrows Cam added, “We’re the Jeffersonian. We get all the best toys.”

* * *

* * *

“A faerie queen,” Xander said. “We’re dealing with a faerie queen. Is she going to cover Sunnydale in pink glitter?”

Giles didn’t look up from the book he was reading as he said, “If the Unseelie Queen consumes enough human energy to escape her prison, she’ll plunge the world into an eternal winter night. Sunnydale would likely be overrun by vampires.”

Xander grimaced. “Okay, very not of the good. Much badness to be had. How do we stop her?”

“Stop that shadowy guy we saw snatching people for her?” Willow suggested. “With iron. Iron worked on the leannán sídhe and those redcaps on Sunday.”

“It’s catching the shadowy guy that’ll be a problem,” Buffy grumbled. “Did you see how fast he was?”

“I kind of missed that on account of the redcaps,” Xander admitted. Those evil little goblins had wicked claws, and Xander really hadn’t wanted to find out what kind of infections he could get if he survived after they dipped their hats in his blood like they’d been doing with corpses all over Sunnydale. Getting distracted while fighting them was not an option.

“Really fast, and I think he phased through an arrow,” said Lucy, who had been on top of a warehouse with a crossbow during the redcap battle.

Xander rubbed his forehead. “One disaster at a time, is that too much to ask for?” He turned to Ethan, who was the only one sitting around the table in the library who didn’t have a book open in front of him. “I don’t suppose you know what he is, Mr. I’m-only-here-for-the-free-food?”

Ethan leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Well, assuming we are dealing with the Unseelie Queen, if he’s nabbing humans for her he must be one of her hunters. Since you’re calling him ‘shadowy guy’, I assume we’re dealing with the Dark Man.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Giles looked up from his book and stared at Ethan with wide eyes. “Fear Dorcha, of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Ethan said something about narrow-minded Watchers that made Giles glare at him before he went to a different book.

“How do you spell that?” Willow asked as she moved her chair to the computer. “Xander, you left your email logged in again.”

“Hey, it was on purpose this time,” Xander said. He was waiting for Booth to tell him what the results of the DNA test were.

Willow gave him a look that made it clear she didn’t believe him.

“I’m waiting for a message,” Xander said.

“Well, there’s nothing new here,” Willow told him. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

Xander nodded.

They researched in silence for a few minutes. Even Ethan had finally been forced into reading by Giles. Xander stared at the book in front of him for a while before he realized that it was in a language he couldn’t read. He sighed, added it to the pile of books for Giles to read and picked up another book, checking that it was in a language he understood before he started trying to read it.

“Xander, you’ve got an email,” Willow said not long after Buffy had convinced Xander to take a break from the books and practice sword fighting with her (not that it took much convincing). Buffy stopped miming a disarming move and held her hand out for Xander’s sword. Xander handed it over gratefully, rubbing his wrist. Buffy had used that move on him three times already and it was starting to get physically painful.

Willow picked up the book Buffy had abandoned while Xander took her seat in front of the computer. Xander quickly read the email that Booth had sent. When he looked up from the computer he saw that Willow, Buffy, Giles and Lucy were watching him intently.

“Well?” Willow asked.

Xander grinned. “Agent Booth is my biological father.” 


	3. The Brides in the Park

The next time Xander saw Agent Booth was when the girls were recovering from a battle that left Kendra dead and Willow the new Unseelie Queen.

As usual, all the disasters had happened at once. They’d spent months chasing down the Dark Man while the Unseelie Queen and her hunters kept sending baddies after them. Redcaps were nothing compared to a barghest, and the less said about the Three Billy Goats Gruff (yes, really) the better. Kendra had first come to Sunnydale during the Gruff invasion. Fighting the magically mutated faerie goats had been hard enough without adding a second Slayer who wanted to kill most of their strongest fighters, but somehow they managed. Then everyone except Drusilla and Lucy needed an explanation for why Spike was fighting with them and not against them (it involved Spike calling humans Happy Meals on legs), which was interrupted by Snyder barging into the library and yelling at them for being at school on a Saturday. Xander couldn’t remember the last time they hadn’t been at school on Saturday. Why had Snyder picked then to suddenly care about it?

Kendra wasn’t the only visitor they’d had who took violent offence to Angel, Drusilla and Spike existing in Sunnydale. Ms. Calendar’s uncle (and boy was it weird to think about teachers having family) had shown up the day before Buffy’s birthday and ended up spilling the beans on how they were members of the clan that had cursed Angel with a soul. That had gone about as well as the Gruff invasion, with slightly fewer broken bones. Buffy had only forgiven Ms. Calendar after her uncle got himself killed by a demonic bear thing with a name that no one but Giles could pronounce.

Finally, someone had come up with a combination of spells to keep the Unseelie Queen imprisoned. The only problem was that they had to get to her, which lead to them planning a full frontal assault, which lead to them finding out that the only portal they could use to get to the Unseelie Queen’s prison would only let women through. So Buffy led Kendra, Willow, Ms. Calendar, Lucy and Drusilla to fight a faerie queen while the rest of them went to destroy a petrified demon called Acathla that Kendra’s Watcher had originally sent her to Sunnydale to help them with. Xander didn’t know the full story of what had happened on the other side of the portal, but it definitely hadn’t been as easy as standing around while Angel cut a statue in half with a sword. Considering that his best friend was in a state of shock and a girl he knew and liked was dead in a coffin being shipped to Jamaica, it seemed reasonable that he’d forgotten that he was leaving for Washington, D.C. the Friday after school ended to spend the summer with his secret dad. It wasn’t until Ms. Summers brought it up at their post-apocalypse celebration dinner that Xander realized he hadn’t even started packing yet.

Booth was waiting for him at the airport in Washington after he got through security. The cross in his carry-on had raised a few eyebrows but he’d made it through okay. And thank the gods for that, because he felt naked enough with only a cross and a bottle of holy water for weapons. He had some stakes in his suitcase but he couldn’t bring anything more substantial on the plane.

“Hi, Xander,” Booth said. “How are you doing?”

“Eh,” Xander said. He shrugged and then decided to hell with it, he was going to give his dad a hug. Booth seemed surprised but he returned the hug.

“Is something wrong?” Booth asked.

“A friend of mine died,” Xander said. “Not a close friend but...” He drew back and grabbed the handle of his suitcase. “So, what’s the plan?”

Booth gave him a look but thankfully decided not to get into Kendra’s death right then. “I was thinking we’d drop your stuff off at my place and go out for lunch or dinner or whatever meal you want to call it. Do you like Chinese food?”

Xander grinned. “I’m a teenage boy. I’ll eat almost anything.”

* * *

Xander was getting demony vibes from the guy who owned the restaurant Booth brought them to. Sid had stood in sunlight while he was greeting them and there wasn’t anything visual about him that said demon, but Xander still felt a chill on the back of his neck like he did when Angel, Drusilla, Spike or, more recently, Willow was close to him. Booth telling him that they didn’t order, Sid just knew what they wanted to eat, only made that feeling worse.

“So, how’s school been?” Booth asked.

“Okay,” Xander said. “Buffy’s cousin and some of her friends graduated so we had a big party.” He didn’t mention that the party had been two days after they’d held a vigil for Kendra. Compartmentalization? He’d never heard of such a thing.

“Good for them,” Booth said. “Lucy, right?”

Xander nodded. “And Sam and Soul. They’re all in a band with Willow’s boyfriend and this other guy, Devon.”

“I think you mentioned them. Dingoes Ate My Baby?” Booth asked.

Xander nodded again. He picked up his glass of water and hesitated for a second before he put it back on the table. Booth seemed to come to Wong Fu’s all the time and he was fine, but Xander’s finely tuned Hellmouth senses were wary about drinking something that could be poisoned. It didn’t make sense, even demons in Sunnydale didn’t go around poisoning people who went to restaurants they owned, but that was demonic radar for you.

“So, are you and Cordelia still dating?” Booth asked.

Xander smiled. “Yeah. She’s leaving for Paris tomorrow. We get back to Sunnydale on the same day.”

There was part of him that was surprised their relationship had lasted this long. Sure, there had been the brief break-up and the love spell that went haywire, but aside from that he and Cordelia had been going steady since a swarm of redcaps had trapped them together in Buffy’s basement.

Sid came back to their table with a bowl of soup that he placed in front of Booth and a plate of noodles for Xander. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks, Sid,” Booth said.

Xander poked at his pile of noodles before putting a small forkful into his mouth. His eyes widened. The combination of the noodles with the sauce and little bits of vegetables was salty and sour and exactly what he needed after being on a plane for five hours. “This is great!”

Booth grinned. “Yeah, Sid knows his stuff.”

They spent the rest of the meal talking about topics that were thankfully fairly easy for Xander to censor for supernatural shenanigans. He didn’t want to spring the demon stuff on Booth when they were still getting to know each other.

When they left, Sid shook Xander’s hand and said something in a language that took Xander a minute to translate. It was a demon language that Xander knew how to speak in theory but could barely pronounce the name of in practice. _“Light be with you, White Knight.”_

 _“And also with you,”_ Xander said. At least, he thought that was what he said. He was ninety-percent sure. Sid grinned.

“You speak...Cantonese?” Booth asked when they were both in his car.

“Not a word,” Xander said before he could think better of it. He quickly added, “I only know what to say back when someone says something to you. Like they say ‘How are you?’ and I say ‘I’m fine’ and I couldn’t hold a conversation past that.”

Booth nodded. “Okay.”

“Giles though, he knows every language,” Xander said. He launched into a story about the day they’d learned that Giles knew Elvish, making it very clear that he was talking about _Lord of the Rings_ and not any real elf languages, which he managed to keep going until they reached Booth’s house.

Booth had just unlocked the front door when the ground began shaking. Xander immediately dragged his dad under the door frame and counted his heartbeats while they rode out the earthquake.

One.

Something inside the house was rattling.

Two.

A car alarm went off somewhere down the street.

Three.

Xander couldn’t hear anything over the blood pulsing in his ears.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

The earthquake ended as suddenly as it started. Xander stood in the doorway for a few more seconds before he stumbled inside and sank to the floor.

“Whoa, you okay, Xan? What’s wrong?” Booth asked.

“Meep,” Xander said. He cleared his throat and looked up at Booth’s concerned face. “Last big earthquake we had ended with me giving my friend CPR. Guess I’m not quite over it.”

* * *

Xander’s body was three hours behind what the clock said, so when Booth got a call at seven at night he was more than awake enough to realize that someone was dead. Or maybe that was his growing up in Sunnydale talking. Either way, when Booth asked if he would mind spending a few hours at the Jeffersonian, Xander quickly agreed. Staying at Booth’s place alone while his dad went to catch a killer would be too weird.

Booth only stayed in the Jeffersonian’s lab long enough for a round of introductions before he stole three of the scientists and headed back out the door. Xander raised his eyebrows and looked at Dr. Saroyan and Ms. Montenegro, who were the only people left who Booth hadn’t taken to see the body. “So, what do you guys do around here?”

Ms. Montenegro (“Call me Angela. I’m not much of a miss, more of a hit.”) had a really cool computer that Willow would totally be jealous of when Xander told her about it. After a quick discussion she set up a game of chess that was 3D projected into the middle of her office. Soldier Boy was good at chess and Xander had been playing with Giles on the rare occasion they didn’t have some sort of monster to kill. He beat Angela twice before Booth and the science squad got back with way more than one body bag.

“Oh boy,” Angela said. “This is going to be a bad one.”

Booth made it clear that he didn’t want Xander anywhere near the bodies. Xander had to agree with him. He spent enough time with corpses back in Sunnydale. Dr. Saroyan, Angela and the rest of the team had a lot to do before they were likely to find anything for Booth to work with, so he and Xander went back to his place to get some sleep. When they arrived at the Jeffersonian the next morning, two of the six bodies had been stripped completely down to bones and the lab smelled like dirt and coffee.

“Good morning,” Dr. Hodgins said, looking far too awake for someone who had to have been working for most of the night. “Earthquakes, am I right?” He saluted Xander and Booth with his mug of coffee.

“What have you got?” Booth asked. “Wait a second. Xander, could you go to Angela’s office?”

“Sure thing,” Xander said.

Dr. Brennan said something about the bodies all being women and being buried over several years as Xander walked away. In her office, Angela was looking at a 3D image of a skull on one of her computer monitors while she sipped a cup of coffee.

“Morning,” Xander said.

“Huh? Oh, hi Xander.” Angela put her coffee down on her desk. “Booth’s here?”

“Nah, he’s still asleep. I decided to walk over.” Xander grinned. “He’s talking to Dr. Brennan.”

Angela laughed once. “Don’t scare me like that, wise guy. I’ve got something your dad needs to see.”

Xander eyed the skull rotating on the computer screen.

“Not this,” Angela said. She clicked something that made the skull disappear to be replaced with six photographs spread across two monitors. “These. Each woman was wearing one but there’s nothing identifying about them except for these little marks and I can’t tell if they’re a design or writing.”

The little marks that Angela was talking about were only visible on the last two gold pendants pictured. The other four had worn down to not much more than gold disks with coloured jewels stuck in the middle of them.

Xander squinted at the pictures. “Can you make those marks darker?”

“Well, yeah.” Angela moved a few sliders and adjusted the contrast between the gold and the marks carved into it. “Do you see something?”

Xander tilted his head. The marks were carved in circles from the outer edge of the pendant to the jewel in the centre. He definitely recognized them.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s writing, Akkadian cuneiform I think. I...” Xander trailed off as he found what seemed to be the beginning of the inscription and began reading. The more he read the less he liked what he was seeing. “Gods damn it. Summer’s supposed to be quiet.”

Angela looked at him with clear confusion. “I’m sorry, what?”

Xander pointed to the pictures. “Can I send these to someone? I’d like a second opinion.”

* * *

It took a while for Xander to convince Booth to let him email the photos to Giles. In fact, it wasn’t until Angela and Dr. Hodgins started arguing in his favour that Booth budged. It was kind of funny to see the FBI agent surrendering to three people with logical arguments, but not funny enough to stop Xander from worrying.

Xander wrote an email that boiled down to “Please tell me I’m wrong”, attached the pictures of all the pendants in case the unreadable ones were good for context or something, and sent the email to Willow. Giles didn’t have his own email address, though not for lack of trying on Willow and Ms. Calendar’s part, and Willow was the only one of them who had their own computer.

“Can I make a call to California from here?” Xander asked. He checked the clock. It was way too early in California for anyone normal to be awake considering that it was Sunday, but Willow wasn’t just anyone. If there hadn’t been any all hands on deck late night slayage she would probably already be awake and doing something productive.

“Use my phone,” Angela said.

Xander picked up the handset of the phone on Angela’s desk and dialed Willow’s number. No one answered. He frowned. The call went to voicemail. “Hey, Wils, it’s Xander. I sent you an email that Giles really needs to see. Call me back at...” Angela scribbled out a phone number on a pad of paper and Xander read it out. “It’s important. Call me.” Xander ended the call and dialed another number. This time someone answered.

“Summers’ house, Lucy speaking.”

“Hey Lucy, it’s Xander. Is Willow there?” Xander asked. “I tried to call her house and nobody answered.”

Lucy was silent for a moment. “Where are you calling from?”

“The Jeffersonian. I’m using my dad’s friend’s phone,” Xander said.

“Are other people around and am I on speakerphone?” Lucy asked.

“Yes and no,” Xander said. “What’s going on?”

Lucy sighed. “Willow’s in Faerieland. Queen stuff. Buffy and Dru went with her.”

Xander blinked. Willow was where?

“Why were you calling?” Lucy asked. “Anything us mere mortals can help with?”

“Yeah. I sent Willow an email that I need Giles to see yesterday,” Xander said.

“Oz has custody of her computer," Lucy said. "Give me your number. I’ll call you back when we’re at Mr. Giles’.”

Xander rattled off Angela’s phone number again. “Thanks.”

“Summer lasted one day. Must be some sort of record.” Lucy hung up.

Xander looked at Booth. “They should call back in about twenty minutes.”

Booth nodded. “What did you read that you want Dr. Giles to look at?”

Xander grimaced. What he’d read was screaming “Apocalypse!” to him, but he didn’t want to tell Booth, Angela or Dr. Hodgins that. 

“It could be related to motive?” Xander said. “I could be wrong, and even if I’m not wrong Giles has all the books about this stuff so he’ll be able to give you more information than I can.” He did a double-take. “Wait, Giles is a doctor?”

* * *

Lucy called back half an hour later, when everyone else had gone back to work and Xander was working on double-checking his translation of the pendant with help from a book he’d borrowed (stolen with intent to return, same thing) from the Middle Eastern department. Angela put her on speakerphone and started recording their conversation in case Booth wanted to listen to it later.

“Mr. Giles wants to know how many bodies there are,” Lucy said without preamble.

“Six,” Xander said. “Why?”

“Six bodies,” Lucy repeated. Xander thought he heard Giles’s voice before she spoke again. “Mr. Giles oh dear lorded.”

Oh no. That was bad. That was very bad.

“‘Oh dear lorded’? What does that mean?” Angela asked.

“It means Giles said ‘oh dear lord’ and now we’re all screwed,” Xander said. “So I’m probably not wrong even though I really wish I was. Hey, did you know that Giles is a doctor?”

“Like, medical doctor or PhD? If one more woman dies then it summons a demon and the world ends. It’s a sacrifice of virgin brides deal. Oz is helping Giles send you more info now,” Lucy said.

“PhD. Is there a timeline?” Xander asked. There was always a timeline with these things.

“One bride every quarter century to a total of seven,” Lucy said, sounding like she was reading from one of Giles’s books. “PhD, huh? Weird, but not surprising.”

Xander raked his fingers through his hair. “Okay, okay. I’ll ask Dr. Brennan how old the bodies are and get back to you later.”

“We’ll be here all day. Check your email,” Lucy said before hanging up.

“Virgin sacrifice?” Angela asked. “We’re dealing with what’s likely several generations of murderers trying to end the world through virgin sacrifice?”

That was what it sounded like. When Xander asked why she wasn’t more surprised about the ending the world through summoning demons part, Angela said that a psychic named Avalon had taught her that magic was capable of many things. In theory, she had no trouble believing in demons. Xander hoped that could stay in theory. He hadn’t packed for a demon cult, let alone an apocalypse.

When Xander checked his email he found two messages from Oz. The first contained information about the ritual that Giles was certain was in progress and where the killer might have found it. Xander forwarded that one to Booth after checking to make sure that there wasn’t anything in it that could reveal any of the many secret identities they had going on. The second email was a list of trustworthy people in D.C. who Xander could contact to get more weapons (thank you, Giles) and help with any magic stuff that came up when preventing the world from ending. Oz had indicated the ones Giles was planning on contacting. Somehow Xander wasn’t surprised when Sid Shapiro and Avalon Harmonia were on the list.

Xander left the lab to return the book that he didn’t need anymore. When he got back, Dr. Brennan, Dr. Hodgins and Dr. Brennan’s assistant Dr. Addy were standing on the platform in the middle of the lab among the six tables of bones having what looked like an intense discussion. Xander didn’t hesitate to hide under the stairs leading to the second floor balcony and eavesdrop. His hearing wasn’t as good as Buffy’s, but he was more than able to hear a conversation happening fifty feet away.

“—should not have sent us that information,” Dr. Brennan said. “You can’t make the evidence fit a theory, that’s dishonest and unethical.”

“But that’s not what we’re doing!” Dr. Hodgins said. “You and Zack estimated time of death for all of them yesterday. I found myrrh oil in my soil samples this morning. Zack photographed the amulets last night. We aren’t making anything fit the ritual Xander’s friend found; the evidence is doing that on its own.”

Dr. Brennan made a sound of disgust. “It’s so illogical!”

“The people the Aztecs sacrificed were sometimes seen as the embodiments of gods,” Zack said. “It’s not entirely illogical for modern people to have similar beliefs, especially if they were raised that way.”

Or if they lived in Sunnydale. Couldn’t forget that giant abnormality. How many ritual sacrifices had they stopped last year?

Dr. Brennan sighed. “I will inform Booth that we have found evidence that makes it seem likely that the murder or murderers are following the instructions he sent to us.”

So the bodies probably did have twenty-five years between them. Nice that he wouldn’t have to figure out how to get that information out of Dr. Brennan.

Xander skirted around the edge of the room and made his way back to Angela’s office. None of the scientists seemed to notice that he’d been there.

* * *

Of course the last sacrifice had to happen that Wednesday.

Xander stared at the screen of the laptop Angela had lent him for the day. He didn’t bother hoping that the words of the latest email from Oz and company would change. It only made sense for him to have a deadline to prevent the end of the world while he was supposed to be spending time with his dad.

“Why is this my life?” he grumbled.

“Hey, Xander, what do you want on your pizza?” Angela asked.

“Huh?” Xander looked up and saw Angela standing in the doorway of her office with Dr. Hodgins behind her. “Uh...fish?”

“Fish,” Angela repeated. “You want a pizza with fish.”

Xander nodded. Giles thought that it would probably fade like the craving for raw meat after the hyena possession, but right now the swim team incident was making him really want to eat fish for every meal about ninety percent of the time. Giles had introduced him to kippers.

“Anchovies,” he said. “Oh, and ground beef.”

Angela pointed at him with the key ring she was holding. “Okay, you are getting your own pie. If your dad gets back before us, tell him we went to get lunch.”

Xander gave her and Dr. Hodgins a thumbs-up before turning back to his email. Oz had sent him another one while he and Angela were talking. As he watched, three more messages arrived in his inbox. He sighed and got back to work.

Good news: If they prevented the sacrifice from happening on Wednesday then the ritual would fail and the demon couldn’t be summoned again for three hundred years.

Bad news: There was an entire nearly-immortal demon clan involved in summoning the big, bad demon king, and one of the females of the clan was going to be the last bride.

Worst news: Buffy still wasn’t back yet and the next plane from Sunnydale to Washington wasn’t leaving until Tuesday afternoon. Xander was the only Scooby on the ground for the next two days.

There was no way this was going to go well.

* * *

“So where’s your guy finding this stuff?” Dr. Hodgins asked. Xander didn’t realize that the self-proclaimed bugs and dirt guy was talking to him until Dr. Hodgins waved his hand in front of his face.

“Sorry, what?” Xander looked up from the laptop he’d brought upstairs with him. They were eating lunch on the second floor of the lab with Angela, Booth, Dr. Brennan, Dr. Saroyan and Dr. Addy. Xander had been trying to keep only one eye on his email in case Oz sent him something else, but he’d apparently gotten distracted.

Dr. Hodgins gestured towards the computer. “That demon summoning ritual and all the trimmings? Does your friend really have books on that stuff?”

Xander nodded. “Giles has a lot of books. He’s book guy.” He reached for another piece of pizza. “But there’s a lot of stuff online too. Our computer science teacher is part of an online coven.”

Dr. Brennan opened her mouth and seemed like she was about to say something, but then she looked at Angela with a quizzical expression. Xander suspected that Angela had kicked her under the table.

Booth cleared his throat. “Do you read a lot of those books?”

Xander was glad that he’d just taken a huge bite out of his pizza slice. He chewed slowly while he tried to figure out how to respond. Booth already knew that he could read Akkadian. Saying that he wasn’t interested in old books, even though that was still mostly true, wouldn’t work. Instead, he went with the tried and true method of making a bad joke. “Hey, you don’t have to worry about me ending the world. Willow would kill me if the planet was destroyed before she got into Oxford.”

Dr. Saroyan muffled her laughter with one hand. Dr. Addy started talking about the force that would hypothetically be required to destroy Earth and the conversation turned to a combination of science and action movies that Xander could get away with nodding along to while he finished eating his pizza. As soon as his anchovy and beef pie was gone he excused himself and went to Angela’s office to call Giles.

“Mrs. Willoughby?” Giles asked when he answered the phone.

“Nope, just me,” Xander said. He looked over his shoulder at the door before deciding that he’d better turn around to make sure no one came in and overheard something incriminating. “Does the name Shay Bashir mean anything to you? Booth said someone with that name was buying ingredients listed in that translation Oz sent.”

“Shay Bashir,” Giles murmured. “No, I can’t say...but if...that could...Oh dear lord.”

Well, that wasn’t good.

“Why ‘oh dear lord’?” Xander asked. Giles didn’t respond. “Giles!”

“Ethan and...and I will be in Washington in a few hours,” Giles said. “Ethan has a...teleportation spell. Jenny and I need to make arrangements with our allies. Shall I call you again before we leave?”

“No, that’s okay.” Xander spotted Angela heading towards her office. “Be careful, don’t die, bye!” He hung up the phone and got settled in his chair at the far end of Angela’s desk before Angela opened the door. Then he looked at his email inbox and sighed.

Oz had sent him five more emails.

* * *

Xander barely avoided taking Booth’s head off when his dad woke him up. That was something that he was probably capable of. The ballistics gel dummies he, Giles, the Dingoes, Ethan and Angel had made and then destroyed while they were stressed out and waiting for the girls to finish fighting the old Unseelie Queen were proof.

Booth dodged Xander’s first punch and caught the second in his palm. “Xander! It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Huh?” Xander blinked himself to more than fifty percent alertness and lowered his fists. “Sorry. Nightmares.” Mostly of the demon-related variety. Falling asleep with his head on a table was something that usually only happened during all night, someone-is-going-to-die-if-we-don’t-find-this-demon research parties.

“Yeah, I guessed that.” Booth rubbed the back of his head. He had dark bags under his eyes and looked about a second away from a jaw-breaking yawn. “Time for us to head home.”

“Did you get the guy?” Xander asked.

Booth grimaced. “Yeah, we got him.”

That was unexpected.

“You did? How?” Xander had been sure that whatever Giles and Ethan had been planning (something involving thyme and blowtorches) would leave all the demons in a million unrecognizable and probably charred pieces. 

“Hanging upside down from the top of the Washington Monument in his underwear,” Booth said.

Well, that sounded like it was going to be an interesting story to get out of Giles later. Ethan had probably taken pictures.

Xander’s laptop beeped to alert him of an incoming email. He sent off a quick “got it” in response to Oz’s all clear, logged out of his email and shut down the computer. “Let’s go home, Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did this chapter make any sense at all?


	4. The Doctor on the Beach

Booth was worried about Xander. Living in a town with one of the highest murder rates in America was one thing. But his friends dying? The nightmares? The look in his eyes that was more like a veteran solider than a teenage boy? It wasn’t normal and it wasn’t good for him. When their latest case involving a human skull washing up on a Los Angeles beach brought Booth and Bones to Sunnydale, Booth was quick to use it as an excuse to check up on his eldest son. Zack had more than enough experience to keep examining the skull while they were gone.

“I find it odd that Alexander’s school library is open on Sundays,” Bones said as Booth parked the rental car in the lot of Sunnydale High. “The high number of churches in Sunnydale seems like it would be correlated with a strict unspoken Sunday closures policy.”

Booth looked side-eyed at Bones. That sounded like the start to one of her “religion is illogical” speeches. “Xander said Giles keeps the library open for them so they have somewhere to do homework.”

Bones nodded. “It’s good for teenagers to have role models.”

As Booth had expected, the school was entirely empty except for the library. The sound of raised voices made Booth decide to knock on the door before going in, but he and Bones still walked into the middle of an argument.

“It has to be me!” a brunette girl who Booth didn’t recognize shouted at Willow and a man Booth hadn’t met before but was absolutely certain was Angel. The guy looked just like Booth had ten years ago, aside from the clothes and lack of tan.

“No, it doesn’t,” Angel said. “It doesn’t have to be either of you.”

“But—” Willow and the other girl said.

“Hi, Agent Booth,” Lucy said loudly from the stairs on the other side of the library. Everyone in the room turned to look at Booth and Bones. Willow blushed bright red.

“Dad!” Xander jumped out of his seat at the table. “What are you doing here?”

“There’s a case that brought us into town. I wanted to say hi quickly,” Booth said. “How’re you doing?”

Xander shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Uh...”

Lucy sighed. “Xander, go hug your dad. We all know you want to.”

Xander didn’t hesitate before diving across the room and giving Booth the most rib-crushing hug he’d ever been given. Then he introduced Booth and Bones to everyone else in the room. Booth finally got to match names to faces for Oz, Cordelia, Devon, Sam and Soul, but there were also a lot of new faces. Angel’s sister Drusilla, Willow’s cousin Fen, Ms. Calendar the computer science teacher, Lucy’s boyfriend Spike and a new student named Faith, who was the girl Willow and Angel had been arguing with. There was also Wesley, a British man who seemed to just be there, not unlike Ethan except Ethan was way more relaxed.

“Nice to meet all of you,” Booth said. “Sorry, we can’t stay long.”

“We should be leaving now,” Bones said, looking at the clock. “The hospital is expecting us at noon.”

“Hospital?” Xander asked. “Ah, wait, case. You can’t tell us, can you? Never mind.” 

Actually, Booth and Bones could have given them the bare bones (ha!) of the situation, but they really did have to get to the hospital.

* * *

“You must be Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan.” A South Asian woman shook Booth’s and then Bones’ hand. “I’m Dr. Wakim, the head of oncology.”

Booth frowned. “I thought Dr. Simmons was head of oncology.” He’d spoken to Dr. Simmons less than three hours ago.

Dr. Wakim pursed her lips. “He was. If you insist on speaking with him, I’d be happy to show you the morgue. I hear Dr. Brennan’s specialty is making bones talk.”

It took Booth a moment to understand what she was saying. “He’s dead?”

Dr. Wakim nodded. Well, that was interesting, especially considering what had brought them to Sunnydale General in the first place.

“I don’t work with fresh corpses,” Bones said.

“Then you are in the wrong place,” Dr. Wakim muttered. She smiled. “How can I help you? Simmons didn’t leave me much more than your names.”

Booth cleared his throat. “Dr. Marcel Capson gave a seminar here almost four months ago, in November.”

“Yes, I remember that.” Dr. Wakim grimaced. “Let me guess, he’s dead?”

Booth and Bones looked at each other.

“Yeah, he is,” Booth said. “How’d you know?”

Dr. Wakim shrugged. “This is Sunnydale. Let me see what I can find for you.”

Booth didn’t want to think that Dr. Wakim was rushing them out of the hospital, but that sure was what it felt like. She gave them a copy of Capson’s itinerary and his seminar outline, quickly answered Booth’s questions about what she knew about Capson’s movements, and then told them that her department was busy so if they wanted to talk to anyone else they’d have to come back later. The only thing she didn’t do was push them out the door.

“That was suspicious, wasn’t it?” Bones asked when they were back in the car.

“Definitely,” Booth said. “Could you call Angela and check if she’s found anything on Capson?”

“She would call us if she found anything,” Bones said.

Before Booth could ask her to call anyway, Bones’ cell phone rang. She answered and after listening for a moment turned on speakerphone.

“I got a list of Dr. Capson’s patients for the last five years,” Angela said over the phone.

“How?” Booth asked.

Angela chuckled. “I asked nicely. Anyway, they’re all dead except for two girls, and one of them has been in a coma for two and half years.”

“And he mostly treated kids, right?” Booth grimaced. “That’s a lot of angry parents. Who’s the girl who isn’t in a coma?”

Angela told them.

“Okay,” Booth said. “Looks like we’re going back to school.”

* * *

The kids were actually doing homework when Booth and Bones got back to the library. Willow was explaining something from a textbook to Xander and Faith, Buffy was frowning at something she was writing down, Oz was quizzing Devon on math, and the college students were gathered around the counter with Dr. Giles, talking over each other in what seemed to be multiple discussions that Booth couldn’t keep track of.

“Hello again,” Drusilla said. “Would you like a biscuit?”

“Uh, no thank you,” Booth said, shaking his head at the packet of chocolate chip cookies Drusilla was holding out to him. Drusilla shrugged and offered the cookies to Bones, who took one.

“Hi, Dad,” Xander said without looking up from his work. “Can’t talk. Science test tomorrow.”

“That’s tomorrow?” Buffy exclaimed. “I thought French was tomorrow!”

“No, that’s Tuesday,” Willow said. “And science is Thursday. Math is tomorrow.”

Booth hid his amusement at Xander and Buffy’s cursing and the scramble to swap out their textbooks. Willow and Faith didn’t. He saw them share a smirk before they got back to work.

Sam, Lucy and Soul were standing at the far end of the counter. Booth had to dodge overenthusiastic gestures from Sam and Lucy and clear his throat twice before they seemed to notice that he and Bones were there. Seemed to notice, because Booth was sure that all of them knew when he and Bones arrived and had been ignoring them until then. Or maybe they were really invested in the project they were talking about. That was a possibility.

“Can we borrow Lucy for a minute?” Booth asked.

“Uh, sure,” Lucy said. “We can talk in the stacks, I guess. Snyder will raise hell if he catches us in the hall.”

Bones frowned. “Isn’t that your principal?”

Sam and Soul scoffed. “Warty little troll,” Soul muttered.

“Fun-hating slime mold,” Sam said. “I wish Principal Flutie hadn’t gotten eaten.”

Eaten?

“We don’t talk about that,” Xander called from the table.

“Anyway,” Lucy said. “Stacks okay?”

“Sure,” Booth said.

The quizzing/debates/arguments happening at the front of the library grew muffled as Lucy led them into the maze of bookshelves. They turned a few more corners than Booth would have expected before they came across a cozy-looking armchair across from a small couch placed against a wall.

“This area of the library seems much larger than it should be,” Bones said with a frown.

Lucy shrugged. “Willow did some optimizing.” She sat down in the armchair. “What did you need?”

Booth and Bones sat down on the couch. It was much smaller than it looked and Booth had to keep very still to avoid awkwardly brushing up against Bones. 

“A kid found Dr. Marcel Capson’s skull on a beach in L.A.,” Booth said.

Lucy flinched. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Booth said. “He was last seen alive in Sunnydale. You were one of his patients.”

“Years ago,” Lucy said. She looked at Bones and then back at Booth. “What’s your point?”

“Where were you on November twenty-seventh?” Booth asked.

Lucy mouthed the date to herself and frowned. “What day of the week was that?”

“Friday,” Bones said.

“I had two hours of Latin on Friday mornings,” Lucy said slowly. “Three hour chemistry lab in the afternoon, one hour study group, and then I’d either be at my aunt’s house or with Spike. Sorry, I couldn’t tell you what I did on that exact day. It’s been a while. My Latin professor took attendance though, and I passed chemistry which you can’t do without finishing all the labs.”

Booth nodded and made a note. He didn’t want his son’s friend to have killed Capson, but she was the only person with any connection to him who they knew had been in Sunnydale the last day he was seen alive. He couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of investigating Capson’s death from every logical angle.

While Booth was writing stuff down, Bones and Lucy got distracted by Bones asking Lucy about her college plans. Booth was about to interrupt their conversation about anthropology and mythology when several screams rang out. Lucy jumped out of her seat and ran for the front of the library. Booth and Bones looked at each other for a second before going after her. There were crashes and more screams as they navigated the maze of bookcases. By the time they reached the front of the library, all of the chairs had been overturned, most of the books had been knocked off the table and everyone was glaring (or, in Drusilla’s case, staring) at a dark haired boy in black clothes and dark makeup who was holding a squirming grey cat with both hands.

“Control your demon, Michael,” Devon said. He poked at the gash on his forehead and grimaced.

“I said I was sorry,” the boy who must have been Michael grumbled. “It’s not my fault he likes Amy more than me.”

The cat yowled.

Dr. Giles sighed. “Please take him home before he gets the chance to cause any more trouble.”

Michael nodded. “Yes, sir.” He turned and caught sight of Booth and Bones. His eyes widened. “Why are there two of him?” He nodded towards Angel. “Should we be worried?”

“Angel and Agent Booth are unrelated lookalikes,” Willow said. “No worry needed.”

“I mean, Agent Booth is FBI, but still no worry needed,” Lucy said.

“Okay,” Michael said. His cat yowled again. “Shut up, Plagg. See you guys tomorrow.”

“Say hi to Amy for us,” Xander called after Michael as the other boy hurried out the door.

On the floor by the book cage, Soul was gritting his teeth while Spike studied his arm. “That’s definitely broken, mate,” Spike said.

“Hey, Devon,” Sam called. He pointed at Soul when Devon looked at him. “First cast of the year. Pay up.”

“Not until he actually has a cast,” Devon said. “Ow!”

Lucy had gotten out a first aid kit and was dabbing at Devon’s cut with disinfectant. “You need stitches. Does anyone else have to go on the hospital run?”

“Did you miss the gaping wound in your side?” Buffy asked sarcastically.

Lucy looked down at the blood soaking into her shirt. “Oh.”

“What happened?” Booth demanded. 

The kids went silent. Dr. Giles took off his glasses and began cleaning them with a handkerchief.

Faith turned to Xander. “Your dad, Boy-toy”

Xander opened and closed his mouth. “Demon cat,” he finally said. “These things happen.”

* * *

“Angela has sent us a simulation of possible situations under which the perimortem damage to the skull could have occurred,” Zack said.

Booth stepped all the way into the lab that his squints had been given to use while they were in L.A. and closed the door behind him. “Let’s see it.”

Zack tapped a key and Angela’s simulation started playing on the one computer monitor that was mounted on the wall.

“The mosaic fracture on the back of Dr. Capson’s skull was caused by a blunt object with a slight curvature,” Zack said. “The force required to cause this injury is about five hundred and ten newtons.”

The simulated Capson fell backwards and hit his head on a mound rising out of the ground. It looked like an exposed pipe or a speed bump or maybe some sort of concrete lawn decoration. Really, it could have been anything. The same went for the next part of the simulation, which showed the Capson crash test dummy being thrown or pushed so that he was still upright when his head cracked against a featureless pillar.

“Is there any chance someone just hit him with a baseball bat?” Booth asked while the simulation went on to show Capson being dropped from a height before landing on the pipe/speed bump/lawn decoration.

Bones shook her head. “This pattern of fracturing was caused by an object with a larger circumference than standard baseball bats, and the object was orientated nearly vertically with respect to his skull, not horizontally.”

“And you said before that this wouldn’t have killed him,” Booth said.

“Well, left untreated the fracture would have put pressure on his brain that would have led to brain damage and most likely death, but no, it wouldn’t have killed him right away,” Bones said.

Booth watched as Angela’s simulation looped. Falling backwards, being thrown, being dropped. He was sure that Bones and Zack would have already figured out exactly how Capson died if they had more of his bones to work with, but all they had was a skull. The people they had looking for the rest of the body had yet to find anything. Still, he and Bones had done more with less.

“So, what kind of object are we looking for?” Booth asked. If he had to walk around Sunnydale with a list of measurements like he was taking part in some kind of scavenger hunt, that’s what he would do.

* * *

The scavenger hunt was called off on account of Angela. She’d set a searching program loose on pictures from Sunnydale on the off chance that it would find something that matched the specifications of the object that broke Capson’s skull. What she found was a type of street lamp that matched the measurements and had only been used on one street in Sunnydale, a street that bordered Sunnydale General Hospital.

Booth then had to spend hours calling every business on the street to ask if they had security footage from November twenty-seventh, but it was better than having to look around the whole town.

There wasn’t much security footage left. Four months after the fact, most buildings that did have cameras had already overwritten their recordings. Booth got a jewellery store, a toy store and a bank to send their footage for L.A.’s analysts to comb through. It didn’t take long before he was notified that they’d found something.

“Here’s your guy,” an analyst Booth thought was called Joseph said. He pointed at a white figure walking towards the camera.

“Where’s this from?” Booth asked as he watched the greyscale video. Capson came into view and then walked past the camera.

“That was from the toy store.” Joseph switched what was on his computer to a split screen. “These are the jewellery store on the left and the bank across the street on the right. Watch what happens at ten fifty-two.”

Booth watched. At ten fifty-one a couple came into view of both cameras. The person closer to the street was slightly shorter and dressed in a dark hoodie that hid their face. The second person was a black and white pixelated mess whose face was too fuzzy to make out. Booth thought that could have been because of the cameras, but when Capson came running into frame at ten fifty-two his face was perfectly clear in the footage from the jewellery store. Capson grabbed the arm of the person in the hoodie. They turned and tried to back away from him but he kept pulling them towards him and saying something that the camera wasn’t good enough for Booth to lip read. The pixelated person got between Capson and Hoodie but quickly backed away when Capson shoved something that looked like a knife at their face. Then Hoodie gave Capson a sudden push and yanked their arm free. Capson went flying several feet and crashed into the street lamp in front of the jewellery store. He fell onto the sidewalk, completely still from what Booth could see. Hoodie put their hands to their face like they were surprised. Pixels crouched over Capson’s body and seemed to turn towards Hoodie for a moment. After another minute, Pixels stood. They gave Hoodie a hug and then the two of them walked away, leaving Capson lying on the ground.

Joseph paused the recording. “Is it okay if I skip ahead a bit? The next ten minutes is nothing but his body on the ground.”

“Sure,” Booth said. He could always go back if he really wanted to see how no one had noticed a body on the sidewalk for ten minutes.

The video started playing again. The scene was unchanged. Then another black and white pixelated person came into frame. They seemed like they might have been taller than Pixels the First and the place where their hair should have been was black instead of white. Pixels the Second picked up Capson’s body, easily slung it over their shoulder and walked out of frame again.

“Wait, hold up. Do we see where they go?” Booth asked.

“Unfortunately not,” Joseph said. “That’s the last we see of them. If we had more cameras to work with I might be able to find something.”

“I see what I can do,” Booth said.

As he was making his way back up to his temporary desk, Booth had a brainwave. He flipped open his cell phone and looked through the address book for the number he had for Xander. It was in actuality the number for the school library, but Xander said it was better to try to reach him there since he was at the library more often than he was at home. (That was another reason that Booth had offered many times to sue for custody and have Xander move in with him. Xander kept refusing because he didn’t want to leave his friends, which Booth understood, but that didn’t stop him from asking.) 

The phone was answered a few seconds after Booth placed the call. “Sunnydale High library, Rupert Giles speaking.”

“Hi, Doc. It’s Booth,” Booth said. “Do you have a minute?”

Dr. Giles sighed. “Well, considering that it’s another two hours before school ends, yes. What is it that you require?”

“Do you know that jewellery store near Sunnydale General?” Booth searched his mind for the store’s name. “ _Emerson’s_?”

“I’m familiar with the area,” Dr. Giles said.

“If someone wanted to get from there to the ocean without being seen, what route would they take?”

Dr. Giles was silent for a few moments. “That would depend on several factors. Time of day, final destination, why they wished to go unseen...”

“Big guy carrying a dead body near midnight,” Booth said.

Dr. Giles went silent again. Booth heard the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.

“In that case, I assume they would take the direct route,” Dr. Giles said.

Booth was almost afraid to ask. “What’s the direct route?”

Dr. Giles told him.

Booth groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

What kind of person travelled across rooftops to dispose of a body? 

* * *

Booth was trying to get more security footage for Joseph when his cell phone rang.

“Hi, Dad,” Xander said. “Are you busy?”

Booth looked at the printouts covering his desk. Then he looked at the clock and winched. He didn’t know that _that_ was the time. “No, I’m not busy. What’s up?”

“Well, we’ve been talking and we think we’ve got something that could help with your case,” Xander said.

Booth sat bolt upright in his chair. “You what? Xander, please tell me you didn’t do anything dangerous.”

“We were talking!” Xander said. “We figured some stuff out. I promise nothing dangerous happened.”

Booth really hoped that was true.

“Can you meet us after school tomorrow?” Xander asked. “Around four? Dr. Brennan can come too, if she wants.”

Booth thought about it for a moment. He was sure that his son wouldn’t willingly be part of anything that would put him and Bones in danger, but he didn’t know Xander’s friends as well.

“I’m not telling him that, Deadboy,” Xander said almost too quietly for Booth to hear. Then he sighed. “Fine. Dad, Angel says he’ll guarantee your safety. I say that makes him sound like a mafia boss, but what do I know?”

Booth chuckled despite himself. “We can meet up. In the library at four?”

“Angel’s place, actually,” Xander said. “It’s got more space. Two six zero seven Crawford Street.”

Booth wrote the address down in the margin of one of the many lists of Sunnydale phone numbers on his desk. “Okay, see you then.”

After hanging up, Booth looked over the papers on his desk and grimaced. Should he keep making useless phone calls or should he go to the lab and force Bones and Zack to get dinner with him? He picked up the phone on his desk, but then his growling stomach made the decision for him. Dinner, definitely dinner. He could get back to calling people tomorrow.

* * *

“This building looks very familiar,” Bones said as they parked in the driveway of 2607 Crawford Street. “I can’t quite place it.”

“Worry about the architecture later,” Booth said. He looked up at the mansion and frowned. It was a lot of house for a college kid. Maybe it was Angel’s parents’ place or he had a lot of roommates.

The doorbell made a sound like church bells. Before it finished ringing, Angel opened the door with Buffy and Faith a few feet behind him.

“Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan.” Angel nodded to them and stepped to the side. It took a second for Booth to realize that he was letting them come inside.

The front door opened into a living room that was filled with the rest of Xander’s friends. They were gathered around the fireplace, taking up a large L-shaped couch and one of two smaller couches. Dr. Giles was seated in an armchair, reading. There were an additional two armchairs and a beanbag chair right next to the fireplace. The furniture was mismatched and the stone floor was covered in at least five overlapping rugs. Despite all the seating options, Fen was standing at attention at the corner of the L-shaped couch behind Willow.

Faith sprawled on the beanbag chair and gestured to the empty couch across from her. “Have a seat.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and smiled. “What she said.” She sat down in one of the empty chairs. Angel took the other.

Booth and Bones sat down on the empty couch. It was larger than the one in the library had been. There was enough space that a third person could have comfortably sat with them, which Cordelia, Xander and Drusilla were taking advantage of across from them.

“So, what did you guys figure out?” Booth asked.

The kids looked at each other. “Your dad, Xander,” Buffy said. “Your decision.”

“That’s a lie. Half of this is your plan.” Xander sighed. “We know who killed Capson and what happened to the body.”

Booth stared at his son. “You said you didn’t do anything dangerous.”

There was a round of scoffs, snorts and comments that made it clear that Xander’s friends found the idea of him not doing something dangerous to be utterly ridiculous. That was concerning.

“I didn’t do anything dangerous!” Xander said. “Not for this.” He frowned. “Where do I start?”

“Spike killed the doctor?” Willow suggested.

“Angel disposed of the body?” Devon said.

“Please don’t shoot anyone?” Soul said.

“What?” Booth asked. He was really hoping that he’d heard all of that wrong.

“Start at the beginning,” Drusilla said. “Tell the story in order until you reach the end, and then stop. Once upon a time...” She looked at Lucy.

“I broke his skull, Spike crushed his throat, Angel fed him to lizard ghouls,” Lucy said. “Please don’t shoot anyone.”

“What?” Booth repeated. He wanted his son’s friends _not_ to confess to murder, dammit! Was that too much to ask?

Spike smirked and started to say something that was cut off by Lucy slapping the back of his head without even looking at him.

When Booth turned to Bones, she was studying Lucy, Spike and Angel with a frown. “You are approximately of the right heights to be the people in the security recordings Booth recovered, but only Angel would have the strength to complete the activity ascribed to him. And I don’t understand what ‘lizard ghouls’ are. Is that some sort of code?”

“Oh, I know this one!” Cordelia said. “They’re actually called” she made a hissing sound that was interspersed with clicks “but no one outside their species can actually pronounce that so we call them lizard ghouls.”

“Excellent pronunciation, Cordelia,” Dr. Giles said.

Cordelia smiled. “Thank you. I’ve been practising.”

Booth and Bones were silent. Booth opened his mouth to ask a question and then closed it again when he realized he didn’t know what question to ask. He frowned.

“I think we broke them,” Buffy said. “Giles, how do we unbreak two of the only good parental units in this family?”

That was apparently enough to unbreak Bones. “Parental?” she stuttered. “I am not parental.”

“I think you’d be a good stepmom,” Xander said.

Willow nodded. “We’ve only got seven good parents between the nineteen of us. The rest are absent, deadbeats or dead.”

“Nineteen?” Xander asked.

“I’m counting Ms. Summers, Ms. Calendar, Giles, Ethan and Dalton,” Willow said.

Xander sighed. “ _Dalton._ For a minute I thought you were including Wesley.”

Booth cleared his throat. “Could we maybe get back to the point? You’re saying that Spike killed Dr. Capson. Why?”

“Cause Dr. Frankenstein wanted me, B and Jean to be his lab rats,” Faith said.

“Again, in my case,” Lucy said.

Booth was pretty sure that he was imagining it when he heard Spike growl. Almost certain. Definitely imagining it.

“Lab rats?” Bones asked. “Again?”

“Think of a number,” Lucy said. “Nineteen...Thirty-two...Five...Three hundred and sixty-seven...Pi squared...Square root of two...Two over the square root of three...That’s not a number.”

“And that’s why Faith calls her Jean,” Sam said while Bones opened and closed her mouth in stunned silence. “We’ve also got enough superstrength in this room to bench press a school bus or ten.”

“That isn’t humanly possible,” Bones said.

Then Xander asked for all the ordinary humans in the room to raise their hands. Four hands went up. Sam’s hand quickly went back down.

“Dude, how’d you forget you’re part demon?” Devon asked.

“I’ve only known about it for three days,” Sam said.

Drusilla giggled.

Booth’s brain momentarily forgot how to form words. These were kids, not demons, _kids_. Whoever had been convincing them they were demons was in for a world of hurt.

Dr. Giles was the only Sunnydale adult in the room. Booth turned his best glare on him.

Dr. Giles cleared his throat. “I believe proof may be required.”

The kids looked at each other.

“So, who wants to arm wrestle?” Xander asked.

“Yeah, no. We already broke one table.” Buffy stood up. “Faith?”

Faith grinned. “Way ahead of you, B. I’ll take the right side.”

Before Booth or Bones could say anything, the two girls had picked up the couch they were sitting on and were holding it above their heads with one hand each. Booth’s heart jumped into his throat. 

“I thought we were trying to do this without sending anyone to the hospital,” Cordelia said.

“We’re not going to drop them,” Faith said.

After a minute, Buffy and Faith put them down. Bones immediately jumped to her feet and started talking so quickly and with so much jargon that even Booth couldn’t keep up.

Booth covered his face with his hands for a few seconds. “Okay, is there anything else we need to know? Preferably not criminal.”

“We don’t have the deputy mayor tied up in my basement!” Willow squeaked after a moment of total silence.

All eyes turned towards the redheaded girl. Willow blushed and ducked her head.

“You know, just because you have to tell the truth doesn’t mean that you should,” Cordelia said. “Suspicious denial, much?”

Willow groaned. “I’m sorry, it slipped out.”

“Actually, speaking of the deputy mayor, did anyone feed him today?” Angel asked.

“I brought him breakfast,” Soul said. “Lucy gave him lunch.”

Hadn’t Booth asked for no more criminal revelations?

“Perhaps we should all sit down and start from the beginning,” Dr. Giles said.

“Tell them the Slayer story,” Drusilla said. “The world is older than you know...”


	5. More Things in Heaven and Earth

“So we’re now part of a demon clan—sorry, family—that consists of three vampires, one vampire seer, two vampire Slayers, a faerie queen, a faerie knight, a part demon, a part demon telepath and a werewolf,” Cam summarized. “I call dibs on not being the one to tell Hodgins.”

“Zack’s going to tell him,” Booth said. Zack had lost the coin toss back in Sunnydale, after he’d been freaked out by Spike in vamp face.

Spike, who had then said that Zack was “alright” and possibly invited him to have a threesome. Possibly with Angel. Booth hadn’t been able to tell if he was serious or not. The dynamics of that side of the family were something that would take more than a day to understand.

“Warn me so I can avoid Hodgins that day,” Cam said. “I don’t need to hear his theories on government cover-ups, no matter how true they probably are.”

There were definitely government cover-ups going on. The entire situation in Sunnydale for one. Something that the army had done during World War Two that involved demons that Booth hadn’t gotten the full story on for another.

“You’re taking this better than I thought you would,” Booth said.

Cam rolled her eyes. Her computer started beeping and she went to look at whatever that was before answering. “I was a big city coroner. We had mandatory seminars on vampires.”

Coroners had what?

A faint scream made it into Cam’s lab. It sounded like Hodgins shouting “Oh my god!”

“I think that might be our cue to disappear,” Booth said. “I didn’t expect Zack to tell him this soon.”

Cam grabbed her purse. “Come on. We’re going to go for lunch and you can guess how many stakes I have in this room.”

* * *

Booth’s cell phone rang a minute after he’d sent an email to Xander asking for details about his graduation. The caller ID said “Sunnydale Library”. He checked the time as he answered. It was eight in the morning in Sunnydale. Classes started at nine. Why was Xander already at school?

“You can’t come to my graduation!” Xander exclaimed before Booth could get out more than the first syllable of his name. “It’s too dangerous and I won’t let you!”

“Okay, which one of us is the parent? I’ve been to Sunnydale before. Why is graduation too dangerous?” Booth asked.

“The Mayor,” Xander said, “is going to turn into a giant demon during the ceremony. Our family is going to stop him. None of us want to be worrying about you during that fight. Bullets really won’t bother him.”

Booth wanted to protest. He wanted to say that enough bullets would bother even a giant demon. He didn’t. One thing he’d learned from working with his team was that ninety-nine times out of a hundred it was better to listen to the expert. He wasn’t the demon expert here, Xander was.

Still.

“Are you sure?” Booth asked.

Xander was sure.

“We’ll keep you posted,” Xander said. “If you don’t hear from us...You’ll know if we fail.”

“Be careful,” Booth said.

“Rule number one in this family: Don’t die.” Xander was silent for a moment. “Love you, Dad.”

Booth swallowed the lump in his throat. “Love you too, son.”

* * *

“Hey, Dad. I’m alive. We’re all alive.”

“That’s good. Where are you calling from, Xander? I didn’t recognize the number.”

“Buffy’s house. We kind of...exploded the school.”

“...You what?”

“High school go boom. We blew it up to kill the Mayor. It was my idea.”

“Don’t tell me anything else. I want plausible deniability when you, Zack and Hodgins blow up something important.”

* * *

“You faked your own death.”

“I took advantage of an opportunity.”

“You faked your own death and you didn’t tell us or Stepmom.”

“You’re not officially my kid, remember? It would have been suspicious.”

“Forget about me, you didn’t tell Stepmom. _Stepmom_ , Dad!”

“I should probably sit down, shouldn’t I?”

“If I have to endure a fifteen minute rant, so do you.”

* * *

_“You’ve reached Seeley Booth. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.”_

“Hi, Dad. Aunt Cam told us about Zack. I know you’re busy catching a cannibalistic serial killer right now, but let us know if there’s anything we can do. Stab wounds aren’t fun. ...That was stupid. Why did I say that? Anyway, we’re still kind of recovering from graduation day but we’ll be there if you need us. Just say the word. Okay. Bye.”

* * *

_“You’ve reached Seeley Booth. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.”_

“Hi, Dad. Me again. Just wanted to warn you that Ethan and Spike are headed your way. They’re pissed, angry, not drunk. Though Spike might be a bit drunk. Anyway, I’m going to call Aunt Cam now but if you get this before she tells you, you’ve got an angry vampire and a chaos mage coming to help you kill Gormogon. Good luck. Bye.”

* * *

“Hi, Dad. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I got your messages. Zack’s going to be fine. Gormogon’s dead.”

“That’s good. Did Ethan and Spike cause problems?”

“Yeah, but I’m putting it in my report as ‘unknown assailant’. Can you tell them to let me do my job next time?”

“If there’s a next time we’re all going to help kill the guy. Except for Buffy and Faith, because Slayers don’t kill humans. Unless the guy isn’t human, then Buffy and Faith will be at the front of the line.”

“...Good to know. Is Giles there? Can I talk to him?”

“Yup and yup. Hold on a sec.”

“This is Giles. What did you wish to discuss, Agent Booth?”

“How do I tell Zack I’m proud of him?”

“Exactly as you just did, Agent Booth. All you have to do is say the words.”

* * *

Zack got out of the hospital in the middle of June. By that time, Xander, Willow and Fen had been in D.C. for a week already and the three of them had spent far too much time comparing stab wounds with Zack.

“Careful,” Hodgins said as he helped Zack into Booth’s car. “You got stabbed twelve times while double-crossing a serial killer. You need to take it easy.”

Zack groaned. “But I’m behind on—”

“Hodgins is right,” Booth said. “You’re doing nothing for the rest of the summer but lying in bed and watching bad TV. And reading, I guess.”

Zack grumbled, but Booth knew that Willow had brought him a dozen books that would keep him distracted until at least September. He’d be fine.

“And trying to spot the guards Willow brought,” Hodgins said.

Zack frowned. “Guards?”

Hodgins nodded. “Guards. You can’t see them until Willow gives you the Sight, and it’s wild, man.” He grinned at the wolf-headed faerie standing beside the car.

* * *

“Hey, Dad? Hypothetically, if the military instillation under my school kidnapped and tortured our family members, how much trouble would I get into if I blew it up?”

“You’re not speaking hypothetically, are you?”

“Not at all. They took Spike and Lucy, and then they ignored our warnings and took Oz and Faith.”

“Are they alright?”

“They will be, no thanks to the Initiative.”

“Can you take down this Initiative without using explosives?”

“...Technically yes.”

“Try that first. Giles and I are paying for you to go to school, not destroy it.”

* * *

“We ran the Initiative out of town, so the wedding is back on.”

“That’s great news. You didn’t blow anything up, right?”

“...Maybe.”

“Xander.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Alexander Lavelle Booth.”

“We fought a Frankenstein demon android powered by uranium.”

“...What gifts did Joyce and Ethan want?”

“Honestly? They weren’t even sure they were going to have a wedding. I have no idea what’s on their wish list.”

* * *

“So, I’m dating Drusilla and Fen now.”

“What? What happened to you and Cordelia?”

“We broke up last August. She moved to L.A. with Angel, Faith and Wesley. There was a seer involved, some guy called Doyle. Didn’t I tell you this already?”

“We’ve all been busy.”

“True.”

“Wait, did you say you’re dating Drusilla _and_ Fen?”

“Yup.”

“...I need a minute to process that.”

* * *

Ruling out supernatural involvement in cases was a pain. Body dressed like a princess? Better make sure that she isn’t actually a princess whose clan will go to war over her. Body has horns? Check to see if it matches any demon species. Women calling themselves witches? Get Giles to ask the local coven if they have any actual power. It was a lot of extra work and it was exhausting, but it was worth it when didn’t have to actually deal with anything magical or demonic.

And then there was that one minor apocalypse. They didn’t talk about that.

* * *

“You remember Dawn, right?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“No reason.”

* * *

“Joyce is dead.”

* * *

The whole family was in Sunnydale for Joyce’s funeral. It was during the day, like all funerals in Sunnydale were. The church was filled with people who’d known Joyce. It didn’t seem like enough people.

Buffy was the first person to speak, then Dawn, and then Lucy. They talked about how Joyce was loving and loved and strong and brave.

“I know I’m not the only person here to call her ‘Mom’,” Buffy said. She looked at the front row where Xander and the rest of the kids were sitting. “I know she meant a lot to all of us. There isn’t anything we can fight to get her back and I know it would be easier if there was. This isn’t going to be easy. This is going to be hard, but we’re not alone.”

“I miss you, Mom.” Dawn sniffed.

Lucy broke down crying before she could finish. Spike ended up reading the end of her eulogy before giving his own.

“Joyce always saw the best in everyone,” Spike said. “She was the first person in years to look at me and see a man, not a monster. If there is such a place as Heaven, that’s where Joyce is.”

“She had a big heart,” Ethan said. “Joyce was the best of us. I’ve had people ask me if I regret getting married when we only got a year together. I would have married Joyce if we knew we’d only have a day.”

It was only the family and Joyce’s sister’s family who went to the graveyard. Joyce’s parents hadn’t bothered to show, even though both of them were apparently still alive. Booth saw a mausoleum with the door cracked open and a hint of eyes shining in the darkness. That would be Angel, Spike, Drusilla and Dalton.

It took Giles, Ethan, Cam and Angela to stop Buffy from filling Joyce’s grave all on her own. She eventually dropped the shovel and threw herself into Angela’s arms. Angela did her best to comfort the distraught Slayer while Cordelia and Tara gave Joyce’s sister Arlene directions to Buffy’s house. The rest of them huddled together in twos and threes (and fives, in the case of the band), keeping an eye on their surroundings because there was a hell god called Glory who had it out for Buffy and it would be just like Sunnydale if she attacked at the funeral (Xander had said, when briefing Booth on the situation).

They filled the house. It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but there was a lot of tea. People who weren’t family or otherwise obligated to be there didn’t stick around. The women from Joyce’s book club stayed for about five minutes. Joyce’s employees were the next to leave after an hour of reminiscing among themselves, talking to Giles, Ethan and Jenny, and eyeing the kids cautiously after Faith loudly mentioned needing to kill something. When Arlene, her husband Carl and their two sons (ages twelve and fifteen) were the only outsiders left (and when Booth had started thinking of people in terms of family vs. outsiders he had no idea), it was like the whole house let out a sigh of relief.

“Can we not do dinner and just go to sleep now?” Buffy asked. “For like, the rest of the week?”

“Seconded,” Dawn said. She was curled up on the couch with her head resting on Xander’s shoulder. Drusilla was sitting on Xander’s other side, already asleep.

The rest of the kids looked like they agreed with Buffy and Dawn. There wasn’t enough furniture intended as seating for everyone and the kids who’d spent the most time on their feet (Cordelia, Devon, Tara and even Angel, Spike and Fen) seemed to be seconds away from lying down on the floor and refusing to move.

There was a crash outside. Willow peeked out of the window. She sighed. “It’s those ren fair rejects again.”

“Uh, excuse me, ‘ren fair rejects’?” Carl asked.

“Guys dressed as knights who’ve been harassing us for a while,” Willow said. “No big deal. They won’t make it onto the porch.”

There was another crash, likely caused by one of Willow’s guards picking up and throwing one of the knights. That was how a lot of them dealt with problems and invisible faeries throwing people down the street would get a lot less attention in Sunnydale than it did in Washington.

“Might I suggest having supper now and turning in early?” Giles asked.

“Yes,” Buffy and Dawn said.

So they had dinner, five of the many casseroles that were stuffed in the freezer. Despite being exhausted and in mourning, the kids expertly wove lies and misdirection to distract Arlene and Carl from the Sunnydale weirdness. It was a survival mechanism that Booth had to learn at some point. “Must have been the wind” could only explain so much.

“We have to go sleep at the mansion, don’t we?” Willow said with a pout as Faith polished off the last of the casseroles.

“You know we do,” Xander said. “There’s not enough room for all of us here, unless we want to sleep in a pile on the floor and make Buffy’s aunt and uncle think we’re weird.” He flashed a grin at Arlene and Carl.

Booth suppressed a chuckle. He happened to know that there wasn’t enough room for everyone at the mansion either (they didn’t have an infinite number of bedrooms), and the kids were planning on sleeping in a pile on the floor in front of the fireplace. Xander called it a comfort thing.

“Everyone in this town thinks we’re weird,” Cordelia said.

Arlene and Carl’s youngest son looked at Willow with wide eyes. “You have a mansion?”

While Xander spun a story about how it was cheaper for all of them to rent a big place together, Lucy and Ethan were turning down Carl’s offer to do the dishes. Then Dawn started crying and no one wanted to leave until she was feeling better. They left for the mansion after everyone gave Dawn one last hug. Spike and Faith played rock-paper-scissors to decide who’d stay behind to help guard the house. Spike won.

“Cheater,” Faith said. Spike smirked.

“Okay, the sun just set. Load up the cars.” Xander turned to Buffy. “We’ll be back in the morning.”

Buffy nodded. “See you then.” 

* * *

“Buffy is dead.”

* * *

“You’re going where?”

* * *

“You’re going where?”

* * *

“You’re going where?!”

* * *

“You’re going with Stepmom. Okay, Zack. That’s fine. Thanks for letting us know.”

“Are you okay, Xander?”

“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay? It’s not like Angel is going to murder me when I tell him that a quarter of our family has been scattered all over the world. No, everything’s fine.”

“Do you want me to tell him?”

“...No, you don’t need to hear Angelus voice and Irish swearing. But thanks for offering. Remember your crosses and holy water.”

“Already packed.”

* * *

“Xander Booth? This is Avalon. I’m supposed to tell you that the world needs Buffy Summers.”

“Yeah, you’re not the only one to tell us that. We’re working on it.”

* * *

“Buffy’s alive.”

* * *

“We’ve got this sexist creep who’s good at building robots. Can we give him to the FBI? Because if we can’t put him somewhere useful we will turn him into a rat.”

“Robot building sounds more CIA.”

“Really? Great. Thanks, Dad. Hey, Willow, can you hack the CIA?”

“No, Xander, don’t—”

* * *

“Hi Angela, it’s Buffy.”

“And Dawn!”

“We wanted to congratulate you and Hodgins. Willow made this big video that she’s going to send you guys, but we wanted to give you a call. Love you guys!”

“Congratulations! Send us all the baby pictures!”

* * *

“Xander, why was it raining blood?”

“Lucy might have tried to end the world. It’s fine now. Don’t worry about it.”

* * *

“Hi, Stepmom. Thanks for the pictures of Christine you and Dad sent us. Dawn added them to the big baby book she and Dru are making.”

“Yes, Dawn informed me of that. How are you?”

“I am...freaking out. Everyone is dropping hints about wanting babies—even Faith and Devon! Please tell Aunt Cam not to get pregnant, or else we’re going to have the whole next generation born by this time next year.”

“I’ll pass on that message.”

* * *

The day Sunnydale fell into a crater, Booth was at the Jeffersonian arguing with Hodgins about the existence of aliens over pizza. The first sign that something was wrong was when Angela and Cam came up to the balcony level. Angela was clutching a steel door handle in one hand with a stunned look on her face.

“We have a problem,” Cam said. She only looked half as stunned as Angela.

Angela sat down and placed the door handle on the table. There were obvious dents in it where her fingers had been. Booth and Hodgins stared at the deformed metal.

“So, you haven’t been drinking vampire blood, have you?” Hodgins asked.

Angela laughed slightly hysterically. “No. I was trying to open my door and then this happened.”

The four of them looked at each other. Booth looked at the door handle. He had an idea about what could have been going on, but he didn’t want to be the one to say it.

“Maybe I should check some of the strength tests Faith did. Because that kind of sounds like...” Hodgins grimaced.

“I’m too old to be a Slayer,” Angela said. “I can’t be a Slayer.”

If Angela was a Slayer that meant that Faith was dead.

“Maybe Zack knows a way to check for curses or possession or something?” Booth suggested.

Cam stood. “I’ll ask him. Don’t go anywhere.” She headed back downstairs.

Booth picked up his half-eaten slice of pizza and mechanically took a bite. If he pretended that everything was normal and Angela hadn’t just displayed Slayer-like strength then everything would be fine, right?

“Booth!” Cam shouted from downstairs. “You need to see this!”

Booth jumped out of his seat. Downstairs, everyone in the lab was gathered around one of the large screens that someone had set to a national news channel. On screen a town was collapsing in on itself like explosives had been set off underneath it.

“What’s going on?” Booth asked.

“That’s Sunnydale,” Cam said. She had her cell phone pressed to her ear.

Booth felt suddenly cold. The video was live. Sunnydale was currently falling into a sinkhole and his son was there.

Cam took her phone away from her ear and started dialing another number. Next to her, Zack was doing the same.

Haltingly, Booth got out his phone and dialed Xander’s cell number. “Please pick up, please pick up.”

No one picked up.

Booth tried Willow’s number. Again, nobody answered. He kept trying. The more people he called the more worried he got. Even Angel wasn’t answering and he was supposed to be in L.A. at his hotel, whose phone was also not being answered.

“Is that a bus?” Wendell, Bones’ intern, asked.

Booth looked back at the screen. That was a bus, driving through Sunnydale at a breakneck pace as the road collapsed behind it. It looked like a school bus. The Hellmouth was under the high school that had just been rebuilt. Xander and the others were probably on that bus, because the year’s apocalypse wouldn’t have started (ended?) without them and of course that meant they’d be the last people out of town. 

Sunnydale had to be empty. Xander had said that people were leaving town. If Sunnydale wasn’t empty it would be the biggest disaster since...Bones would know.

Booth kept trying to call anyone as they watched the school bus race to the edge of town. He finally got through to Willow as the bus was rocketing over the town line and careening away from the crater that had been Sunnydale.

“What?” Willow demanded. There was an echoing quality to her voice that indicated that she was in full Unseelie Queen mode.

“It’s Booth.” He took a deep breathe to try to calm down. “What happened?”

“We took the fight to the First Evil,” Willow said. “Look, we’ve got a bus full of injured Slayers and...Xander’s alive. Drusilla isn’t. I’ll call you back, okay?”

“Okay.” Booth ended the call. He turned to Cam and Zack. “Xander and Willow are okay. They’re going to call back.”

Cam gave a sigh of relief. “Did they mention anyone else? Faith?”

Booth looked at the crowd that was still gathered around the screen. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll tell you what I know.”

* * *

Willow called back an hour later to tell them that they were in L.A. at the Hyperion, Angel’s hotel. Her voice was still echoing. 

“We’re coming to join you,” Booth said.

“No!” Willow said. “It’s too dangerous. There are still riots going on.”

Booth winched at the power that was somehow able to travel by phone. “Okay, what if it’s just me, Angela and Zack? We’re pretty sure Angela’s a Slayer and Zack and I can protect ourselves.”

Willow was silent for a moment. “Okay, yeah. That would be good. Could we send you a list of supplies we need? We’re running low on a lot.”

Booth agreed to bring what they could get their hands on that would be allowed on a plane and then relayed their flight plan, which Cam had organized while he’d been talking.

“We might be able to send someone to meet you,” Willow said. “It depends on how bad the rioting is. There are demons involved and we’ve been trying to keep casualties down but we’re not exactly running at full capacity right now.”

There didn’t end up being anyone to meet them at the airport. The raging fire shaped like a dragon that was tearing through downtown Los Angeles made the reason obvious. Booth was surprised that the plane was even allowed to land. Luckily, the Hyperion was in the opposite direction from the dragon fire. The rental car was responsive enough that Booth could easily avoid the few holes and questionable destroyed objects in the street.

“There it is,” Zack said.

Zack had been to the Hyperion before, so Booth followed his directions to find parking (in a newly-built garage with no way for sunlight to get inside). When they got to the hotel proper, the air was shimmering with magic.

“We should probably use the front door,” Zack said. “I don’t know if the defences on the other doors will let us in.”

“We’re family, aren’t we?” Angela said, but she didn’t argue. Neither did Booth. He didn’t feel like getting turned into a pile of ash on the off chance whatever defences the hotel had worked against them.

In the front lobby, Tara, Jenny, Wesley, Soul and a blond boy were sitting at the points of a pentacle that had been drawn on the floor with a lit candle in front of each of them. Dawn, Dalton and a redheaded girl with her arm in a cast were standing guard over them. A blonde was sitting behind the front desk, filing her nails.

“Hey,” Booth said. “What’s going on?” He gestured towards the obvious magic in progress.

“Sunnydale Syndrome, to stop people from noticing the giant dragon destroying the city,” Dawn said. “And, you know, keep them from getting hurt, so not totally like Sunnydale Syndrome but pretty close and it’s faster to say than the spell’s actual name.”

“Okay,” Angela said. She smiled at the redheaded girl. “Hi, I’m Angela, he’s Zack and he’s Booth, not Angel.”

The look of confusion on the girl’s face disappeared. “Oh, yeah, we’ve heard about you. Hi, I’m Vi.”

“I’m Harmony,” the girl behind the front desk said.

The candles all abruptly went out. The six non-spell casters snapped to alertness. Booth found himself reaching for, of all things, the wooden cross in his pocket.

“Ow,” Soul groaned. He fell backwards and sprawled on the floor.

Tara opened her eyes a sliver. “Everyone’s headed back now. No major injuries,” she said before mimicking Soul’s boneless lounging.

Dawn sighed. “Let’s get them off the floor.”

They moved Tara and Soul to one of the couches near the front desk. Jenny and Wesley were conscious enough that they could be prodded to their feet and led to another couch. The blond boy seemed to have fallen asleep sitting up the second the spell had ended. Dalton picked him up and deposited him on his own couch.

“Is this what you’ve been doing all week?” Angela asked.

Dawn nodded. “Yeah. It’s been a pain, but on the bright side Angel thinks we might just end up taking control of the whole city at this point.”

“Can you keep the murders down if you do that?” Booth asked.

“Probably,” Dawn said.

Booth didn’t see anything wrong with Angel and Buffy taking over Los Angeles. Giles and Jenny would definitely stop them if they went too far.

That was a lie, but it could be used to justify Booth taking sides in what amounted to a demonic gang war so it was fine.

“Did defeating the First Evil cause this to happen?” Zack asked.

Dawn looked at Dalton. “Maybe?”

Dalton shrugged. “I would say Jasmine is most at fault. This was the epicentre.”

Booth frowned. “Epicentre of what?”

“Do you remember how there was world peace for a few days about two weeks ago?” Dawn asked.

Booth, Angela and Zack looked at each other. “Vaguely,” Zack said.

“Turns out that having your free will taken away makes people really want to rebel,” Dawn said.

In context, that made a slightly terrifying amount of sense.

After about half an hour, people began trickling into the hotel. Most of the things Willow had asked for were medical supplies and it became clear why when twenty Slayers with minor injuries went through seven boxes of bandages and three tubes of antibiotic ointment, all while talking loudly about the fights they’d won and making Vi jealous.

Angel and Buffy were the first of the family to get back. Booth didn’t know how Angel had been able to go outside when the sun was shining, but he decided not to ask yet. Willow and Oz arrived after them, followed shortly by Devon, who’d managed to walk the whole way with a bleeding head wound and a sprained ankle. Sam and Ethan were supporting Giles between them. Giles had hit his head and probably gotten a concussion. Faith entered with a group of other Slayers, got patched up and then left again.

Booth circulated around the lobby, helping to bandage wounds and getting news from the former Sunnydale residents. He learned who he wouldn’t be seeing that day. Cordelia and Lucy were in comas. Robin Wood, the last principal of Sunnydale High, was in hospital after being nearly gutted in the battle against the First Evil. A Slayer named Chloe was hanging on by a thread, which was something of a miracle since she’d all but had her throat ripped out. Spike was standing watch in the hospital. Drusilla had died closing the Hellmouth.

When Xander and Fen finally arrived, Booth didn’t notice them for a minute. Then he looked up from the burned shoulder he was bandaging and met Fen’s gaze across the lobby. The knight’s fathomless black eyes seemed to widen and, in a very human gesture, he elbowed Xander to get his attention. Booth quickly finished bandaging and made his way towards them. Xander and Fen met him halfway.

“Hey,” Booth said.

“Hi, Dad,” Xander croaked.

Xander looked at Booth with one Booth-like brown eye and one black void just like his boyfriend’s. Then he shuffled forwards and rested his head on Booth’s shoulder. Booth wrapped one arm around his son. He held out his other arm to Fen in an invitation that the faerie accepted after a moment of what might have been hesitation. The three of them stood together in the controlled chaos of the lobby and they were home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what this story is anymore.  
> It's fine. This is fine.


End file.
